By Null
It
almost seems redundant to write a review of The Menzingers’ On the
Impossible Past
record because it received many rave reviews upon its release a few years ago.
However, it has resonated so deeply with me that I felt a review was in order.
I also felt I should write a review because this album has returned me to a
time before MP3s, iTunes, and the death of the long play album and record
stores in general. This is because the process through which I acquired the
album, and fell in love with it, harkens back to the old days.
Sometimes
it is good to take a chance on an album that you know nothing about. I would
often do this when my town had an independent record store. If I saw an
intriguing album cover, I would just pick it up and take a chance. I have found
some of my favorite albums this way.
The
first thing that drew me to this record was the cover. The back-and-white image
of a faceless woman with her hand on her heart seemed intriguing enough and the
focal point of the picture is a mysterious ring—of a lost love, a fading love,
or a lifetime companion that has weathered the hardships of life and loss.
I
saw the album was released on Epitaph records, which made me hesitate. True,
Epitaph has been the home of Bad Religion, one of my life-long favorite bands,
but the ongoing problem with Epitaph, as with Fat Wreck Chords, is that all their
albums tend to sound the same, with few exceptions. They tend to have the same
production and “Southern California punk” sound. In many ways, I think these
labels have contributed to the homogeneous sound of punk these days. The punk
scene used to be very diverse and on many small labels I am sure it still is.
So,
I took a chance and brought the record home. Upon listening to the first half
of the album, I heard a production that was very familiar, and to be honest,
pretty boring. The album contained the motifs and punk-pop structures that have
been played into the ground. Yet, I had to admit that there was something
different happening here. The slick California punk sound was evident, but this
album has a more raw and salt of the earth feel. Another
contributing factor was that the vocals had a very “wearing your heart on your
sleeve” delivery, more akin to Gaslight Anthem or Springsteen. The album also
had a literary feel. These guys were storytellers. And they are from the East
Coast, not California.
After
listening to the second half of the record, I immediately started it over and
listened again. This continued for about the next five days and the album
bloomed like a fucking lotus of heartache, nostalgia, and loss. This is what
leads me back to the old days. When I was a kid, I would get a cassette tape
with my allowance, and listen to it over and over again. Some of these
cassettes were great and some not so much. Regardless, the tape would sit in my
car’s cassette player for days or weeks. Some of my most loved records were “growers,”
and this is definitely the case with On the Impossible Past. The brilliance of the
record only becomes evident when taken as a whole.
If
one were to hear a song from this album in isolation, it probably wouldn’t make
much of an impact, which brings us back to the lost art of appreciating an
album as a complete story, like a book. As the days went by, I started to hear
the emotional wail of such beloved bands like Seaweed, the urgency of the vocal
delivery found on Superchunk records, and the deep literary storytelling found
in Springsteen. As a sentimental literature geek, this album began to resonate
deep under my skin. Yes, it is filled with guitar-pop hooks and heartbreaking
sing-a-long choruses but, unlike when I first listened to the record, it now
all sounded like an old familiar friend.
The
lyrics began to sink in and my literary analysis was put on high alert. The
album begins with, “I’ve been having a horrible time pulling myself together.”
This sets the tone for the entire album, which is a meditation on life and
loss. Its literary implications and tradition rock / punk structure are overt
in the second track, as the formula for the album is laid bare, “Here’s to you,
the same chords that I stole / From a song that I once heard / The same melody
I borrowed from the void / I’d rather observe than structure a narrative / the
characters are thin, the plot does not develop / It ends where it begins.” This
is a synopsis of the entire record to follow. Except the characters aren’t thin—they
are filled with complex and contradictory implications in an impossible
situation. Such is life.
It
is said that the more specific something is, the more universal it becomes.
This is definitely the case with this record. What follows are stories of
specific times, people, and places weaved into catchy and heartfelt tales of
times gone by, never to return. It is a sentimental and nostalgic journey, and
it is one that anyone with any awareness of the passing of time can relate to.
It somberly accepts loss while defiantly fighting against fading memories. It
embraces the present while being haunted by romantic and vivid images of the
past. The distinction between the past and the present becomes foggy.
“I’ve
cursed my lonely memory with picture perfect imagery / maybe I’m not dying I’m
just living in decaying cities.”
The
urgency of the present is often made explicit by the fading of the past, as
each day counts down to our inevitable end. Painful or joyous memories can grip
your throat at any unexpected moment.
“It’s like
I’ve landed in the rubble of my past life and…never…bought a return flight,
from the shame, the fear, the guilt that’s tough to mention, the kind that
always pries your eyelids open.”
We
are haunted by the people we have loved, who are no longer with us. Everything
is fleeting like the pain of remembering the pitter-patter of young love.
“You’ll
carve your names into the Paupack cliffs just to read them when you get old
enough to know that happiness is just a moment.”
Fuck. This
album is beautiful.
“Now I’m
older and tired.”
Music
is one of those art forms that can have an immediate emotional impact. The
dynamics between the often melancholic / celebratory mood of this record and
the somber and sentimental reality of the lyrics make for an infectious mix
that mirror the workings of my everyday experience and thought processes. I’m
afraid to stay up and drink into the wee-wee hours while listening to this
record because the cops might pick me up drunk, crying, naked, and dancing in
the street, while the stereo is blaring this album through my open windows at
1:00 AM. It could happen. The sound is so youthful and at the same time so
world weary. Like me.
The
record mourns the present meaninglessness of life while waxing nostalgic for
lost friends and simpler times, “You were an old friend, the kind I could
confide in and drink with, on random neighborhood porch steps, our glossy eyes
painted portraits of the streets.’ Yet, as time goes by, “everything I do now
is meaningless,” under, “the great pessimistic unknown.”
The
song, “Casey” is particularly touching, as the vocalist sings about meeting up
and wondering the streets with his old friend after her shift waiting tables, “I
sat and thought about you on the long ride back to Philly, from the way you’d
wear your hair to the way you’d laugh when you drank too much.” A simple story
of friends hanging out descends into desperation and the longing for escape, “So,
Casey, tell me when you’re ready I’m all packed to go. To search for that old
place we found forever ago….” It is heartbreaking because we don’t know what
happened to Casey; we just get the sense that she is absolutely inaccessible.
For
old sentimental romantics, like me, this shit is great, especially when the
drums are getting pounded in unison with the melodic guitars as the desperation
takes hold.
At
first, the album seemed apolitical. It was just a brilliant meditation on being
haunted by enviable loss. But then, with further listens, I realized that there
is a backdrop for this personal pain and longing, a greater context and
subtext. It is the myth of the American Dream that is lost in its infancy.
There is a subtle but repeated motif of an “American muscle car” throughout the
album. Though I have already quoted the opening lyrics to the album, the first
track goes on to state, “…we would take rides in your American muscle car, I
felt American for once in my life and I never felt it again.” The search for
some sort of national belonging is lost before it even begins.
This
motif is revisited in a short vignette, “On the Impossible Past.” It also leads
into the following song, “Nice Things.” In the short vignette, of the former
song, the vocalist tells of him and his friends riding in the “American muscle
car” while dreaming of “nice things.” They are sharing smokes and drinking,
which results in the car sliding off the road and into a ditch. This song only
makes sense when related to the song “Nice Things,” which directly follows it. “Nice
Things” is reminiscent of Fugazi’s “Merchandise” from the album Repeater, in that, our
identities become inseparable from the commodities we buy. Fugazi’s indictment
of consumerism is direct and severe, while The Menzingers’ is much more subtle.
We find that the “nice things” the kids were dreaming about in their “American
muscle car” equates to objects, riches, etc.—the world could be falling apart but
if you are surrounded by “nice things,” you are somehow safe from the realities
of the outside world. As in, “Nice Things,” The Menzingers sing, “Do you want
nice things? Sure you do. Do you call nice things your own? Do you want them?
Do you want to feel safe?” The juxtaposition between the kids in the car
dreaming about “nice things” exists in stark contrast to their reality of
drinking and driving and ending up in the ditch. This is the reality of the
American Dream. A million dollar house will not keep you safe or shelter you
from the inevitable passing of time. Marx knew it. Fugazi knew it. And The
Menzingers restate it in a much more subtle fashion, thus creating a backdrop
and context for the further meditation on life and loss.
As
I previously quoted from the beginning of the record, “the plot does not
develop, it ends where it begins,” we find the last song mirrors the beginning.
The album ends with a mid-tempo melancholy track with a constant rumble of
floor toms like a slow palpitating broken heart called “Freedom Bridge,” which
details individuals that have fallen between the cracks or succumbed to living
with faded dreams and the fumes of memory. The last verse details the “freedom”
that the bridge provides:
“Now
we’re standing on the ledge /and we’re looking at the ground / I feel my body
breaking on the asphalt, hear the sound / Red and blue lights, saying, / “Step
up off that ledge” / So we wrap our hearts up in our heads / and take the fall
instead”
Fucking
amazing.
I
was explaining all this to fellow reviewer, SoDak, on the phone. I was going on
about the torture of our impenetrable and inaccessible haunting memory and
loss. He said, “Well, it is called On the Impossible Past.” It was at that moment that I knew it
was a work of utter American rock ‘n’ roll genius.
I
realize I have made this album feel like a somber affair. Though it is filled
with world weary heartache throughout, it is also filled with hope and youthful
energy. I will be blasting On the Impossible Past all summer in my car. It
will be too poppy for many of you, but given time it will reveal itself as
great literature. I suggest you put the cassette player back in your car. Buy
this album on cassette and leave it in all summer, until it breaks, as
everything, in time, does.
