we are scientists – with love and squalor – 3 stars

this is a strange one to review because i’m so aware of the reasons for my own enjoyment of it. if i’d reviewed this the week i got it, and been completely subjective, the album would score somewhere around a 4.5 out of 5 right away. but as i played it once, twice, three times i realized i liked it because it was a new rock band that couldn’t be lumped in with any of the other recent new rock bands being praised for their ‘newness’. they’re not trying to do the strokes-jangly-guitar thing, or the interpol-droning-voice thing, or the arcade-fire-tapestry-of-instruments-thing, or heaven forbid the futureheads/maximo park/bloc party-new-wave-of-britpop thing. they kind of defied easy classification by not being as novel as the other big albums of the past couple years, and i LOVED that. finally, a straightforward rock album i can just enjoy! a whole album about drinking, trying to get girls, and the consequences of getting them for better or worse, which doesn’t feel the need to pretend to be anything more than that.***

so i listened to it like crazy in an intense burst and relished it for what it was: a simple 3-piece power-pop rock band with standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus songs that almost always have a great riff right when you need it to keep you wanting to listen. one of their songs i consistently skip because it sounds too much like hot hot heat and sticks out like a sore thumb (track 11, ironically titled ‘worth the wait’), but the rocking choruses alone make half the other tracks — ‘lousy reputation’, ‘it’s a hit’, and this week’s pay day song, “this scene is dead” especially — definitely crank-the-volume-worthy.

if you think about it, and this wouldn’t surprise me after seeing some of their sarcastic interviews and the humor content of their site, the whole band’s output could be thought of as a parody of the “rock song” formula, and a sly joke on all of us. could be their band name is the hint that they’re really just throwing ingredients in, following a recipe for the a nice standard chocolate cake everyone wants, and they’re totally aware of and okay with that as a method. on an objective level then, no, it’s not an especially moving or landmark album. and you know what? coke isn’t that great either; but sometimes you know what you want, and it’s something simple and satisfying, and when you get it it’s kinda perfect in its own way.

***footnote: this realization i was so proud of, along with a good deal of my review, was all mirrored almost exactly in the review up on pitchfork. i swear though, i had all these thoughts myself on a number of successive drives home from work playing this album on repeat, days before i thought to go look up an actual review. however, i’m not sure if i should feel validated or afraid now that i’ve seen how much they align…[shudder].