by Michael McKinney
Rating: 7.5/10
On 2015’s We Cool?, Jeff Rosenstock presented a compelling, if deeply flawed, character. He seemed afraid to grow up, constantly feeling the pressure of adulthood closing in on him. He was embarrassed about drinking at house shows; he needed to let go of his “big stupid dreams” and grow up and get married; he avoided loved ones for fear of talking about his future. We Cool? wasn’t cool in the slightest. It was deeply insecure and wrought with regret; its choruses were relentlessly huge and exhausting; its lyrics were both too dense and too blunt to ever be fashionable. But that was okay. And maybe that straightforwardness, that release through sheer honesty, was the point.
WORRY., then, reads like a continuation of his 2015 record. This time, rather than hiding from adulthood and clinging to the past, he’s laying bare the struggle he has as an adult in the modern world. He’s confused and anxious and angry, but where We Cool? was, at times, borderline nihilistic, WORRY. finds an underlying sense of hope. Yes, the world is messy and dangerous and complicated, but Rosenstock seems to think we’ll get through it – we’ve got each other, and that’s enough. This is a release that makes living seem like an act of rebellion. It’s got a fascination with nonexistence and death and surveillance and oppression and failing systems, contrasting them against the day-to-day and embracing your life while it’s there.
While blunt, angry, and forceful lyricism often comes off as exhausting, WORRY. saves itself from that fate – or makes that idea work in its favor – by narrowing its lens rather than concentrating on anything it happens to catch in its glare. Instead of being upset with everything, Rosenstock focuses on two main ideas: the personal effects of issues both social and economic, and fighting against those issues by rejoicing despite them. And he’s able to milk this idea to make a lyrical grab-bag that’s cohesive yet varied, coherent despite what the song lengths would imply, and immediate even though some of the tracks are incredibly particular. There are tracks on here about the gut-punch of economic displacement and gentrification, about wishing for apathy or simpler times without data mines, hashtags, and drones, about being glued to screens until they go to sleep. But they’re also about the value of human connection, about demanding a different kind of life, about love. It’s a messy album, but that feels intentional. This is Rosenstock coming to grips with an unfair world, after all – but, crucially, rather than hiding, he opens himself up even further.
This lyrical weight could bring the record crashing to the ground before it even took off, but Rosenstock manages to find a way. He’s prone to overwriting, but he makes that work, too: excellent, effortless melodies are crammed wall-to-wall here. And it really is wall-to-wall: nearly everything here is a tune that’ll have you half-consciously singing along after just a few listens. The entire back half serves to demonstrate this, with the hooks running the gamut – paranoia, regret, desperation, economic woes, defiance, triumph, love – but all being held together through strength of songwriting and melody. Of course, this is nothing new for Rosenstock – he proved his solo chops with We Cool? – but the consistency demonstrated here is on another level.
It helps that these songs are also sonically deep: these are excellently-crafted tunes, with complexity that augments, rather than hampers, the messages contained within. Quieter – but by no means calmer – bridges are dropped in right when they’re needed; choruses get bigger and bigger each time around with the addition of kazoos or glockenspiels or guitars; background vocals and guitars hit excellent, inescapable counterpoints. Many tracks here demonstrate an excellent sense of pacing, which is critical: the brief respite offered in “To Be a Ghost”’s spectral drumming; the way “HELLLLHOOOOLE” oscillates from quiet to loud and back again; the build of “The Fuzz” that manages to make screaming guitars feel calm.
Rosenstock’s voice, though, is the main instrument here, the thing that anchors the tracks together. He sports a pop-punk whine, a sound that runs the risk of turning some listeners off immediately. And Rosenstock doesn’t make any effort to hide this: instead, he flaunts it, making it a defining characteristic of his music. But he also understands the monotony that a single texture could bring about, as well as the limited emotional range that sound can convey. So, he varies it, from time to time: a croak; tuneful, nasal singing; a scream. Regardless of where he lands, he always finds the right feel to complement each track, deftly walking the tightrope between tedium and incoherence.
Outside of thematic distinctions, though, one thing that separates WORRY. from his previous release is a formal risk that pays off in spades: while the entire LP is just under forty minutes and seventeen tracks long, the last eight songs play as one twelve-minute medley, leaving the first half to deal with the longer numbers. Of these eight, only one is over two minutes, and that feels huge – it’s the culmination of these musical ideas, the ending to the record, a release that’s earned. While the record largely plays as a single breathless sprint, the second half drives that home: track ideas are tossed into the fray, given just enough time to spit their ideas out, and then pushed out of the way. Yes, its understanding of pacing is immaculate – notice how the intensity of “Rainbow” is only upped by “Planet Luxury,” making “HELLLLHOOOOLE” feel like a brief respite until the chorus kicks in. But that pace is a rapid one, and what seems like twelve straight minutes of it is wonderfully exhausting. What initially reads as an unnecessary formal play ultimately proves to be an excellent way to cap out the LP.
All of this – the guitars and glockenspiels, the hope and fear, the fleshed-out tracks and rapid-fire melodies – results in a record that far exceeds the sum of its parts. Sure, it’s not perfect. Sometimes, it feels like it’s going nowhere fast; other times, it’s hard not to wish it would slow down a bit and throw in another verse. Many of its tracks fall into the same structure; elsewhere, some of the more divergent numbers are saved by their brevity. But it’s still excellent, for most of its runtime – inventive, infectious, cathartic. There’s real lyrical and musical weight to this release – Rosenstock’s not faking anything here. It feels like Rosenstock needed WORRY., and if you’re like him – afraid of losing what you have, who you’ve got, or who you are to things you can’t control – maybe you do, too.
FCC: 1, 2, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15
RIYL: Bomb the Music Industry!, The Arrogant Sons of Bitches, Antarctigo Vespucci
Favorite Tracks: 2, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16
