A friend was lamenting the current state of pop / rock to me the other night, asking, "What happened to all of the rebel songs? What do any of these bands have to say?"
It was a good point, I thought. In both Top 40 pop and big, mainstream indie (and the intersection on that Venn diagram is getting bigger every day), there's a definite lack of edge to a good portion of the music. It's true that no band owes us "rebel songs." Maybe they're just kids who really like to play. But I also sense an element of calculation. If you want to move a lot of product, you need to be careful that you're not offending a whole bunch of people or making them uncomfortable.
Sometimes, though, art or music makes you uncomfortable. I'm going to admit to feeling a bit uncomfortable during a few moments on the latest release from Philly's Mumblr. Full of Snakes manages to capture a lot of those uncomfortable feelings that accompany the shift from adolescence to full-on adulthood. I'm not sure if it's quite accurate to say that it's rebellious to make people squirm a little bit, but it's definitely rare in the current pop / rock / indie universe.
The chunky guitar chords and Nick Morrison's up-front vocals on "Got It" recall Weezer. Morrison sings, "I'm finding where I fit. I think I'm post-race, unless I'm just an idiot." It's an appropriate introductory verse for the record as, over the course of the album, Morrison's narrator spends a lot of time finding where he fits in the post-adolescent world. His efforts even include some well-intentioned, if clumsy, attempts to prove his post-race-ness.
"Sober" does a pretty good job of getting at that uncomfortable feeling of understanding that jealousy and insecurity aren't doing you any good even as you recognize that you don't yet have the tools to contain them. "I'm freaking out. I'm freaking out, outside of your house." "Mr. Softee" could be a companion piece. This time, as the narrator "can see you inside calling me," he's a "weak and gentle older me;" and some of his youthful rage is already gone.
"Black Chicks" is a sprawling, again kind of Weezer-y, track in which Morrison sings of hating himself for his feelings and for his "whiteness," an obstacle to some of his narrator's post-race ambitions. "White Devil" (moving into a little Modest Mouse territory here) makes mention of the desire to see past race while not ever really being able to see past it. "Greyhound Station" dispenses with hooks to go a little post-rocky. With lyrics like "outside any race" and "my god is raceless with Wiccan style," it touches on some of the same themes of the other two songs. It contains the split-second use of a word that is pretty jarring. All three songs sound great. Morrison, guitarist Ian Amidon, bassist Sean Reilly, and drummer Scott Stitzer show their versatility. All three songs also kind of made me uncomfortable. Maybe that's the intent.
The album closes with Morrison's narrator worrying about the person he is. On single "Roach," he fears passing all of his worst traits along ("Our spirits don't fit in the ground. They just get carried around until I pass my sins down"). On album-closer "The Grave," he sings, "Only the devil doesn't know he's the devil, so it must be me."
Songs don't have to be about overthrowing the government or the status quo to be rebel songs. Sometimes they can just dare to poke and prod at some of the things that are uncomfortable to talk about. The world confronts people with a lot of stuff to deal with as they grow to become functioning members of society: romantic and social relationships, issues about race, learning to live with yourself or to forgive yourself for some of the fumbling ways you may have dealt with those things. On Full of Snakes, Mumblr poke and prod at all of that. It may make you a little bit uncomfortable, but I think you can take it.
Full of Snakes is out now on Fleeting Youth Records.
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