Aaron Bruno Plays A Mechanical God
Awolnation has done it again. Aaron Bruno, frontman and producer of Awolnation, delivers exactly what you want in Here Come The Runts — epic instrumentals, his insatiably aggressive voice, and a whole lot of energy.
Awolnation released their third studio album on Feb. 2, three years after their second album Run, complete with 14 tracks and an international tour. Bruno, the brainpower behind the band, continues to seamlessly blend the genres of pop and indie rock in Here Come The Runts. His recipe for success, which carried his debut album Megalithic Symphony to platinum, mixes equals parts intensity and instrumental complexity with just a pinch of snarkiness.
Although Awolnation fans may not be surprised by Here Come The Runts, they better be satisfied. Although a few of the tracks on this album attempt a sort of sensitive vulnerability, like “Handyman” or “Table For One,” the songs that make you want to jump out of your seat and dance are the ones that really display Bruno’s musical genius.
Although his lyrics remain simple and nostalgic, Bruno toys with rhythms, beats, and sounds to keep listeners on their toes. The title track “Here Come the Runts” and his closing track “Stop The Train” are absolutely relentless compositions that pump out with inhuman like capacity. They are thoroughly exhausting and appealing all at the same time.
I like to think of him as some sort of mechanical god; he walks along a fine line of feverish control that allows him to create incredibly intricate music that reaches epic — or megalithic — proportions but yet never really conveys an emotional experience.
This mechanicalness translated to the stage when Awolnation played The Fillmore in Philadelphia. Bruno was an endless supply of charismatic intensity as he jumped around the stage, playing the part of the world’s best hype-man. However, his energy seemed to take up the whole room, leaving little space for sentimentality.
Awolnation’s track exemplifies this sort of machine-like intensity. “Here Come The Runts” feels like a cartoon battle-call, complete with trumpets, quick drum progressions, and Bruno’s abrasive voice, that raises to a screech on several occasions.
Bruno opens with an invigorating call to arms, pairing simple drums with rhythmic synth beats as he yells “let’s start the magic, let’s start the sun, let’s stop the holy.”
It’s a rebellious song that refuses to let you rest. As soon as you settle into the beat, he slows it down or picks it up and then screams at you to wake up. He masters a sort of predictable inconsistency, fiercely enlisting the runts, the underdogs, over and over again.
Ironically, the second track of the album lacks what its title professes — passion. The song starts off slow and the chorus feels listlessly repetitive. However, Bruno jolts you awake as he spits out the first “puh-puh-puh” of passion that leads into the chorus. Although this song is probably one of the weaker songs on the album it manages to redeem itself in last 30 seconds. Backup vocals come to the forefront, and turn a relatively empty song into something more rhythmic and soulful.
“Sound Witness System,” which seamlessly transitions from “Passion,” is the best song on the album and stubbornly sticks out from the rest of Bruno’s instrumentally dependent content.
It’s snarkily flirtatious and crude. Although unconfirmed, it is believed that that Sickabod Sane, a New York based rapper, voiced the beginning lines of “Sound Witness System.” The line “she showed up with a vision on a motherf*cking mission, already high and sweaty like she been up in the kitchen,” perfectly captures the sassy innuendos that make the muffled vocals stand out from the rest of the album.
Bruno, proving that he can still pull off the pop-punk scream that listeners fell in love with on Megalithic Symphony’s “Sail,” comes in for the ending, transitioning to a beat with heavier bass and more electronic influences.
However, Awolnation falters on “Handyman.” Despite being the most popular track on the album, it feels oddly dated and empty. It’s one of the few acoustic tracks on the album, with some added electronic reverb. With simple and almost childlike lyrics, Bruno seems to be attempting to portray musical vulnerability, but in an incredibly basic way. Awolnation has consistently delivered on a massive scale and when he tries to strip it down, the sentiment feels almost phony and forced.
However, where “Handyman” fails, “Seven Sticks of Dynamic” most definitely succeeds.
“Lipstick like dynamite,” Bruno sings over and over again in an imperfect falsetto. Where “Handyman” feels disingenuous, “Seven Sticks of Dynamite” delivers you back to a memory of slow dancing and budding romance.
Bruno has always done self-deprecation well. Throughout the entire album, he refers to himself as a “jealous buffoon” several times, a statement that is reminiscent of the opening line from “Not Your Fault,” a song from his debut album, in which he professes, “She’s a ten I’m a joke in my own mind, But she still likes to dance with my punchline.” It’s an endearing tactic, and it shows up on Here Come the Runts’ sickly sweet “My Molasses” and “A Little Luck and A Couple of Dogs.”
“All my friends have children, I have a couple dogs,” Bruno sings, in just a 30-second track hidden within the headbangers.
Here Come The Runt’s regains its momentum with its closing track “Stop That Train,” and Bruno’s feverish control bubbles over in a dramatic, action-packed six minutes. It begins with Bruno promising dying devotion as he sings, “For you I’d jump in front of a train I’d lay in front of a bus.” However, the song noticeable switches gears around minute four, as a foreboding, punk inspired drum beat kicks in.
Doubt sets in as Bruno realizes he’s made a mistake, staring down a barreling musical freight train. Bruno screams “I wanna get off” in increasing panic as the rest of the band mechanically shout back “Stop that train” in a Bohemian Rhapsody-esque progression. As Bruno calls out his last hysterical plea for help, which is almost intelligible at this point, the song rises to a close, leaving the listener unsure of whether he managed to get off.
