In 2001, 17 years ago, Andrew W.K. released the absolute masterpiece known as I Get Wet. Two years later he released the lukewarmish The Wolf. Then things got real weird. Close Calls with Brick Walls followed three years later but only in Japan, as AWK was temporarily barred from releasing music in North America under his own name due to a recently-resolved but still hazy legal dispute involving Steev Mike and a dispute over the ownership of AWK's name, likeness, image, etc (don't go down that rabbit hole, I urge you). In the interim AWK released a J-pop cover album, a solo piano improvisation album, and an album of Gundam themes, along with some odds and ends here and there, but You're Not Alone is his first return to the party anthems of his first two albums. Sorta. How does it stack up to I Get Wet? Well it's almost twice as long, with about the same number of songs (there 3 spoken word motivational speeches dotted throughout the album), some tracks pushing into the 5-6 minute range. So, like Close Calls, things have gotten bloated, if not so much experimental. Remember "Don't Stop Living in the Red" off IGW? Every song on You're Not Alone tries to be that - piano-drive, anthemic, thunderous, slightly portentous and slower and kinda flat. There's such a sense of trying to make every song its own self-contained epic that hearing one after another after another becomes a slog. There's some bangers on here for sure - "Music is Worth Living For", "I Don't Know Anything", "The Party Never Dies", "Break the Curse" - but now everything has become a bit more leaden, a bit too serious. I'm glad AWK is "back" and doing his thing again but this doesn't hit the same highs.
I keep up with Sunburned only intermittently these days, they seem to be taking a more rock-ist approach lately. Like this one. Each track is about 4-5 minutes of pretty ramshackle, jammy, funky, boogie rock...almost spoiled by the throaty, beery vocals shouted over the top of each one of these tunes with nonsensical platitudes. I almost shut it off after a couple tracks but I stuck it out and kinda came around on some level. I was oddly reminded of My War era Black Flag sludge punk. The band sez "these Holy Grail fueled recordings are a mix of iphone and zoom recordings run through garageband, reaper and some plug-ins. We're still working on the much more listener-friendly Black Dirt session..." and point taken, listener friendly this ain't.
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