I shouldn\u2019t write this review.<\/p>\n
As a matter of course, I don\u2019t review albums from bands I know much about \u2014 I like the tabula rasa of being pleasantly surprised or disappointed by a band I\u2019m hearing for the first time. And while I was aware of Army Navy (it did have that song on Nick and Norah\u2019s Infinite Playlist) when I clicked go to begin The Last Place, the new release from the Los Angeles trio, I wasn\u2019t prepared for the 45 minutes of unrelenting bliss which followed. We all have a soundtrack to our lives, and I cannot stop listening to The Last Place because it is mine.<\/p>\n
You see my dilemma.<\/p>\n
I love power pop, maybe too much (I have multiple Romantics albums), and what Justin Kennedy and his Army Navy mates created is a power pop classic which harkens Elvis Costello, The Housemartins and a brilliant but forgotten band called For Squirrels. The jangles, the hooks, the lyrics of an ardent affair with a Hollywood starlet (is it real? Who cares) \u2014 it\u2019s all too much for my indie pop heart to take.<\/p>\n
The band me has me at go \u2014 the opening guitar riff of \u201cLast Legs\u201d is simple yet glimmering \u2014 racing through a varied tune which includes a Teenage Fanclub fuzzed-out guitar solo followed by an acoustic break The Smiths would be proud of. \u201cOde to Janice Melt,\u201d a skip-jump of a song, is meant to perpetuate Kennedy\u2019s supposed affair with married actress \u201cmaybe it\u2019s your celebrity\/ that makes you want to slum it with me,\u201d he sings with whimsy. But what may have been a bad breakup sure sounds good on tape.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s not a song to dislike. \u201cCircus\u201d is romping with homages to the best of Nick Lowe; \u201cFeathered\u201d is a three-minute gem roaming in Rivers Cuomo territory; and I dare anyone to not foot tap along to \u201cI Think It\u2019s Gonna Happen.\u201d You have no choice.<\/p>\n
I thought the album-ending \u201cPastoral\u201d was going to trip the band up \u2014 power pop does not translate in six-minute songs \u2014 but this too builds into a triumph. It starts as a ballad and ends into a chanting free-for-all.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s it. I know reviews are meant to be conjured with a critical eye and this reads more like a fan letter to a Teen Beat fanzine. I don\u2019t care, we love what we love \u2014 and this I love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I shouldn\u2019t write this review. As a matter of course, I don\u2019t review albums from bands I know much about \u2014 I like the tabula rasa of being pleasantly surprised or disappointed by a band I\u2019m hearing for the first time. And while I was aware of Army Navy (it did have that song on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[248,247],"class_list":["post-1159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-army-navy","tag-the-last-place"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1159"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1161,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1159\/revisions\/1161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}