Tracks
Travis Morrison Hellfighters: "As We Proceed"
(2007)
By Conrad Amenta | 31 January 2008
Hard to know whether Travis Morrison will always be associated with the transcendent, planet-aligning excellence of Dismemberment Plan or with the supremely unfair tenor of some reviews of his last album, Travistan (2004), but the first single from forthcoming All Y'all is going to get healthy doses of both. Too bad on both counts.
Because the chug of dirty bass and straight hits on the snare are probably going to benefit from the overcompensation of aforementioned slaggers' guilt complexes, and it doesn't really deserve it; Morrison, approximating (though, thankfully, no longer mocking) the Travis Morrison caricature from "The Jitters" we still unapologetically love, spitting an f-bomb as if it were anything he didn't do far more casually throughout his music career, will be welcomed as if this were a return; and we'll all, though maybe with different degrees of secrecy, lament the premature death of what was one of the most vital and interesting bands in indie rock.
The party tendencies here are just so much less believable and -- I'm sorry to do it, man -- it's because that's not the D-Plan playing behind him. It's unfair, and I wholeheartedly accept that I should probably listen to this in some sort of vacuum, judge it on its own terms, that no drummer should ever be asked to follow up Joe Easley. But it can't be helped. A decent chorus featuring a melody somewhere in the upper echelons of Travistan and the subterranean depths of Change (2001) doesn't do it for me.
Because the chug of dirty bass and straight hits on the snare are probably going to benefit from the overcompensation of aforementioned slaggers' guilt complexes, and it doesn't really deserve it; Morrison, approximating (though, thankfully, no longer mocking) the Travis Morrison caricature from "The Jitters" we still unapologetically love, spitting an f-bomb as if it were anything he didn't do far more casually throughout his music career, will be welcomed as if this were a return; and we'll all, though maybe with different degrees of secrecy, lament the premature death of what was one of the most vital and interesting bands in indie rock.
The party tendencies here are just so much less believable and -- I'm sorry to do it, man -- it's because that's not the D-Plan playing behind him. It's unfair, and I wholeheartedly accept that I should probably listen to this in some sort of vacuum, judge it on its own terms, that no drummer should ever be asked to follow up Joe Easley. But it can't be helped. A decent chorus featuring a melody somewhere in the upper echelons of Travistan and the subterranean depths of Change (2001) doesn't do it for me.