Comments (1)

By Rudy Klapper, October 5, 2010 8:00 am

Guster – Easy Wonderful

Universal Republic 2010

Rating: 7/10

Growing old kind of sucks. Although I’m only in my last year of college and thus fairly young in the scheme of things, everything’s already gone down hill – since my 21^st birthday has passed me by, the only notable birthday event I have to look forward to is my 25^th and a reduction in my car insurance rates, not to mention a decreased metabolism, more bills, and (hopefully but not really) a Monday-Friday job. Talk about an exciting landmark! My warped sense of my own rapidly accelerating age is already cropping up in my music tastes: I want everything to sound like my favorite albums and bands of all time, which I inevitably listened to in my latter high school years and whose follow-ups inevitably disappoint because nothing stacks up to that wide-eyed wonder of hearing something that changes everything. Take Guster, for instance, calmly making what amounts to the same pop-rock-with-an-unfair-ear-for-hooks since 1999’s classic Lost and Gone Forever, with varying degrees of success. I’ve gotten older, and Guster’s fans have definitely gotten older – I recently attended a show where the majority of the audience was way past college and hovering around the black hole of their 30s – but Guster have pretty much stayed exactly the same, and it doesn’t seem to mean a damn thing. Maybe that’s why they’re one of the few bands from my high school days that have yet to truly disappoint me.

Now the critical part of me finds plenty to dislike with this, their sixth album. It’s absolutely nonthreatening – if I had to compare Easy Wonderful to a living thing, it’d be a koala bear, cuddly and furry with a strict vegetarian diet. Drummer Brian Rosenworcel’s brilliant hand drumming, which defined the band’s early sound and still makes their live shows one of my favorites, has been, by and large, neutered to a standard sticks-and-pedals kit. Adam Gardner’s lovely baritone is now reserved strictly for backing vocals, and singer Ryan Miller shows an increasing love for saccharine lyrics and chintzy sentiments that would best be left in a Hallmark card. In other words, it’s the same gradual progression towards “dad-rock” that Ganging Up On The Sun hinted at, but with one slight addendum: Guster is still churning out some of the best melodies of their career.

It’s why I know that Guster will always be the security blanket of my musical existence when they keep tossing out effortless gems like unreasonably catchy first single “Do You Love Me.” Hell, any band that can use song titles like that or “Bad Bad World” or (God help us) “This Is How It Feels To Have A Broken Heart” and make me immediately forgive them when that melody hits has my respect. Guster have been doing this a long time, and occasionally it shows, but I can’t think of another band who, song-for-song, keep coming up with choruses and hooks that stay in my head when other, more “challenging” albums gather dust until I have to write my end-of-year lists. There’s been better songs this year, but few more likely to have me singing along in my highest pitch than “That’s No Way To Heaven” and fewer still with the potential to kick around my skull for weeks like “Do You Want,” or “Architects and Engineers,” or virtually everything else here. There’s nothing more groundbreaking here than some well-placed banjo twang, and Easy Wonderful hasn’t made me think or made me call up a friend late at night caught in some ten-minute-plus audio brilliance. This is just guitars, bass, drums, and harmonies, and it’s absolutely, relentlessly gorgeous. If Guster can grow old and still sound so damn cheerful, maybe everything won’t be so drab after all.

Guster – “That’s No Way To Heaven”

See larger image Easy Wonderful (Audio CD) List Price: $10.00 USD New From: $7.22 In Stock Used from: $4.00 In Stock Release date October 5, 2010.

Comments (2)

By Rudy Klapper, March 11, 2010 12:00 pm

Guster – Lost and Gone Forever

Reprise 1999

Rating: 10/10

It’s impossible to discuss certain records without just a little bias creeping into your argument. The illusion of impartiality is one that takes years to hone, and with Boston rock trio (now a quartet) Guster’s seminal album, Lost and Gone Forever, I’m not even going to try to maintain it. I love Guster – their effortlessly intertwining vocals, their penchant for acoustic over electric instruments, drummer Brian Rosenworcel’s wildly creative drum work and impassioned playing (dude drums with his hands!). For most of the ‘90s Guster was “that band with the bongos,” a talented but fairly inoffensive (and thus inconsequential) group that became fairly well known in the coffee shops and college bars of New England but never really progressed past their stereotypically “college band” vibe: three guys sitting around jamming in some Boston bar. Their major label debut changed all that; it’s the same quirky band, full of double-sided metaphors and those awesome hand drums, but on a much wider studio canvas that fully realized the band’s unique voice. It’s an emotional rollercoaster, at times dripping with surprising venom and at others awash in heartwarming sentimentality, and the band hadn’t yet fully succumbed to the radio-ready formula that would dominate their latter, lesser, efforts.

Pop can be a beautiful thing when done right, and Guster, while indubitably a rock band, have never shied away from their inner pop sensibilities. It’s apparent right there on opener “What You Wish For,” where Ryan Miller’s alto contrasts companionably with Adam Gardner’s low-end rumble and Rosenworcel’s busy drum work carries things along nicely. But it’s the little things that truly shine through and make this a Guster song: the way Miller’s voice purposely cracks on the chorus, the way the band coats lyrics like “and what you wish for / won’t come true” with a bright, poppy melody. That bipolar charm is even more evident on single “Barrel of a Gun,” perhaps Guster’s best song. The drums are titanic, swelling rolls of congas and cymbal crashes that propel everything onward. The lyrics are hilariously disturbing, a love song from a man unhealthily infatuated with the celebrity on his movie poster. And the chorus is pure money, two-part harmony highlighting the dichotomy of the song itself and inviting the audience to sing along with its obsession. It’s the purest distillation of the Guster sound, and the template for the rest of the album.

The major label production does the band a big favor, showcasing and uplifting the band’s traits and talents to stadium-sized levels on an anthem like “Fa Fa” and letting them successfully pull off a near acapella effort with the fragile, triumphant “All The Way Up To Heaven.” Producer and alternative-rock maestro Steve Lillywhite deserves much of the credit here, for knowing just when to let an epic song like “Happier” explode from its timid constraints into a full-blown chorus. Too often in later efforts would the band reveal their cards too early, obscuring their unique appeal with formulaic sounds and structures that sounded just like everything else out on the radio. Here, though, Lillywhite lets a song like the threatening closer of “Rainy Day” to develop on its own. The result is an organic evolution from the foreboding drum taps and crackling guitar of the intro to an apocalyptic, thunderous stomp of an ending, a song that progresses and flows with the ease and chameleonic strength of the record itself. It’s lightning in a bottle, a time-stamped image of where the band had been and where they were going to go in the new millennium.

But Guster would be just another lucky college band if it weren’t for the members themselves, who continually hit homers with nearly every song here, each of which boasts mammoth hooks and sterling performances. Rosenworcel is an absolute beast on the drums, throwing out polyrhythms seemingly on demand and abusing his hands with passion; check out the subtle work on concert favorite “I Spy,” or the way he kills the chorus on “Happier” (there’s a reason he also goes by “the Thundergod”). Miller’s vocals aren’t as polished as they would be in the future, but it’s this winsome imperfection that gives his emotional performances such character. Lost and Gone Forever is a surprisingly dark record, something not readily apparent when you listen to Miller’s eternally optimistic vocals and the songs’ supernaturally bright melodies. But it’s there in the lyrics, from the sarcastic daggers Miller throws on “Two Points For Honesty” to the damning chorus of “Happier” that Gardner’s bass voice adds so much gravity to.

Guster’s mixture of pop joy and lyrical disenchantment is a paradoxical one, and the direct reason for Lost and Gone Forever’s timelessness. It’s the band in a nutshell, three guys who know how to write music that spoke to the sunnier side of one’s heart, but also with that singular talent to match it with subversive wit and hopeless lovesickness. It’s something that the band never really lost, but never again could they focus it as tightly as they did through these forty-four minutes. It’s that rare pop-rock record that demands repeated listens and rewards them; the kind of album that proves that radio hooks and accessible songwriting can coexist alongside impressive musicianship and a roiling mess of emotions. In short, it’s proof that pop music can overcome its self-imposed limitations and result in something true and honest – something great.

Guster – “Barrel of a Gun”

See larger image Lost & Gone Forever (Audio CD) List Price: $13.96 USD New From: $6.18 In Stock Used from: $0.59 In Stock Release date September 28, 1999.