Broken Baby Releases New Album “Late Stage Optimism”
LA-based alternative band rings in September 24th the right way!
First, the news: LA-based Alternative Rock/Pop/Punk/Indie/Maybe Art/RAWKERS Broken Baby, who I’ve written about at least once on the New Haberdasher have released their second full length LP, Late Stage Optimism on Poor Man Records today. You can get your copy at BandCamp, which is where I send anyone looking for independent music, because as I have mentioned, they give artists a better deal on royalties. If you support independent music, buy and stream at Bandcamp.com and if you want some fantastic, fun independent Rock today, check out Broken Baby’s new LP Late Stage Optimism.
I’ll come back to the review of this record in a moment, but I would like to first acknowledge the importance of the date that Broken Baby chose to release their second guitar-driven rock record. This is September 24th. On this date in 1991, 30 years ago when most of the people using the internet right now were either little kids or were not yet alive, several MASSIVE (all caps warranted) albums were released all at the same time. This was music that would literally define a generation, even if the sound associated with it had maybe 5 years or so left until it was absolutely overshadowed by “post grunge” verbal masturbation, nü-metal daddy issues, boybands and the Britneys (You can read all about that time frame by clicking this link.) Alternative Rock did not survive the 1990s in the same shape that it entered the decade: There would be no The Cures, or Mother Love Bones, or early REMs, or Janes Addictions in the 2000s like there were in 1990, largely because of the records that were released on this date 30 years ago.
Let’s take one tiny step backward from this date in 1991, and look at the state of popular music on September 23, 1991, the day BEFORE this most important date in the history of modern rock. 1991 was the year that Freddie Mercury died. 1991 was the year that “I Touch Myself” by the Divynals (a fantastic song) and “Right Here, Right Now” by Jesus Jones, which to me always sounded more like the accidental eulogy of Boomer America than anything else, came out. The Charts were dominated by a VERY 80s sound: “(Everything) I do, I Do it for You” (I don’t get parentheses in song titles) by Bryan Adams from the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves soundtrack was the biggest song of the year, and Michael Jackson, Roxette and Scorpions rounded out the top 4 with music that sounded that it was lifted from the 80s and had its production polished with 90s brightness.
In Alternative world — what we called college rock back then, because college kids listened to it — you could also hear updated sounds of the 80s. “Losing my Religion” by REM was not the sound of the 1990s that, say, “Drive” would be. But REM was probably the biggest Alternative Band in the first half of the year. “Losing my Religion” was ubiquitous on MTV. That kind of sound was slowly making it onto the radio. The summer was dominated by G&R’s single from Terminator 2’s soundtrack “You Could be Mine” and the double album which it would come from, Use Your Illusion I and II would be released the week BEFORE September 24th — the death rattle of the excessive 80s Sunset Strip hair metal which was very quickly about to be completely buried.
But just below the surface, and certainly outside of the view of some little 15 year old in Indiana, a fast current was sweeping out of the Pacific Northwest and would very soon build into a tidal wave that would dramatically and permanently change the cultural landscape of the entire United States. In late January, Screaming Trees’ Uncle Anesthesia was released. It was probably the first record that would sound like the 1990s, released to a larger than regional audience. Take a moment to listen to Mark Lanegan sing on “Alice Said” and tell me that doesn’t sound like the 1990s.
No band sounds more “early 1990s” to me than Screaming Trees. While I was still listening to my old Queen tapes, and discovering Zeppelin deep cuts for the first time, The 1990s were very rapidly arriving. In April of 1991, the eponymous Temple of the Dog was released. Temple of the Dog was Seattle’s tribute to the late Andrew Wood, lead singer of Mother Love Bone, an alternative metal band from the late 1980s, which was seen as tremendously influential in Seattle music and whose lead singer had died of a heroin overdose in early 1990. Few outside of Seattle had heard of him, or his band, until years later, when Mother Love Bone’s song “Chloe Dancer/ Crown of Thorns” held a prominent place on the Singles movie Soundtrack, and their name was graffitied ten feet high on the side of a wall in downtown Seattle.
Likewise, news of Temple of the Dog’s release would not make it to Indiana for many months, but the delay was no loss, as I was not at all familiar with, or even aware of a rising music scene in Seattle Washington, of all places. It was a supergroup made up of people the vast majority of the country had not heard of yet, but very soon would, including Chris Cornell, Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard Mike McCready and Matt Cameron. All of these individuals (with the exception of Vedder) were friends, collaborators, and occasionally roommates of Andrew Wood, and in their respective bands, would dramatically influence my, and much of the country’s taste in music within a year. Temple of the Dog, however would have to wait.
A funny aside: I have very distinct memories of the band Alice in Chains touring the South Bend IN area so often, that I thought they were a local metal band who were about to get big — imagine my surprise when I discovered that Alice in Chains were part of the whole Seattle thing years later. I was wrong about them being local, I was right about them being about to get huge. Similarly, The Smashing Pumpkins debuted Gish in May, but unlike Alice in Chains, in South Bend, nobody my age really cared, yet: Like Alice in Chains, I just thought they were a local band who toured South Bend often — though I knew they were LOUD. Before they got huge, they played this club next to the movie theater where I was seeing a movie. They were louder than the movie. I don’t remember what movie it was, but I do remember (sort of) attending a Smashing Pumpkins show before they got massive.
On August 27, 1991, just after I turned 15, Pearl Jam released Ten. At the time, I did not know what a huge record that would be. When Ten was released, if I was a betting man and was asked “Alright: Kurt Cobain, Chris Cornell, Layne Staley, Scott Weiland, Eddie Vedder: Which of these will still be alive in 30 years?” I would have asked “Who?”
It must have been right around this time that a friend of mine handed me a tape. I remember this instance very specifically. He came up to me and handed me a dubbed cassette tape of some music he got from somewhere. My friend said “Hey Bill, check this music out.” I was expecting some more Queen, because that is what I had asked him for. I was disappointed that it wasn’t Queen. “What is this?” I asked. It just said “Bleach” in his handwriting on both sides. He said “Just listen to it, and tell me what you think of it.” I took it home, and gave it a listen to. It was really loud, dissonant garbage. The Lead singer was screaming rather than singing. The guitar sounded all over the place and the drummer sounded like he was trying to break his drumset. It just sounded like a mess. I returned it the next day, and said “No, man, I did not like it.” My friend seemed deflated. I remember that. I told him it was just a bunch of noise, and that he should get me the Queen tape he promised he’d make for me.
Just about two weeks later was September 24th, 1991. Just about two weeks later I was listening to the radio, sitting in a car at a grocery store waiting for my mother to finish shopping, and I heard the first guitar riff… And then those absolutely massive drums… and that driving bass and that fuzzy, feedback adjacent guitar… and that same dude who was on that Bleach tape. But this time… it was less like static and more like a lightning bolt.
Holy f — king s — t.
On September 24th, 1991, the record that contained this lightning bolt, Nevermind by Seattle’s Nirvana, the same people who had just yelled at me on that bootleg copy of Bleach two weeks before, was released on the world. Also released that day: Blood Sugar Sex Magic by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Trompe Le Monde by the Pixies, Screamadelica by Primal Scream, The Low End Theory by a Tribe Called Quest, and (traditionally, though not actually) Badmotorfinger by Soundgarden. I say traditionally because the album was ready to go and was to be released on this date, but was held up at the pressing plant for some reason, and became available in early October, the same day, actually, as Vanilla Ice’s Cool as Ice soundtrack — Poor Vanilla… he didn’t know he was already a relic and that the world he inhabited where he could make a million dollars ripping off a Queen bassline, was already dead.
And THAT’s why today is the 30th anniversary. That was the date that the 1990s began for alternative, for hip hop, for rock… You name it. Each of these records in and of themselves were monster records in their respective genres. They were towering monoliths, the pinnacles of recorded music. Excellent production on all of them. A zillion hits between them. They set the tone for everything that was relevant that would follow, for all time… so it seemed. But at the moment, and even still today, they are the most important records of my generation; they might be the defining sound of my generation, for whom music was incredibly important, and identity defining.
That happened, 30 years ago today. It is the BC/AD changeover for those of us who were conscious at the time. It was the day I forgot where my Queen and Zeppelin tapes were, because I started playing the f — k out of alternative music for the rest of my life. Nirvana, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, and Smashing Pumpkins were all staples from then on, though I still rocked the Black Crowes too. Alice in Chains would come later when they released Jar of Flies. I never owned a Pearl Jam album, though I own two Screaming Trees records.
Enough waxing nostalgic. When I discovered that my friends in the Los Angeles Alternative band Broken Baby were releasing their record on this most important and all-hallowed date, I was thrilled that I had offered to review it for them.
I first got a copy of the record earlier this year and had a lot of time to soak in it. Over this spring and summer, Broken Baby has been releasing singles from the record, and if I am not mistaken, they have been slowly moving back to playing live shows in support of the record. One thing I know is, their fans absolutely love them, and Broken Baby shows their fans love in return, and if I knew nothing else about that band, I would say that this was enough.
But I also know that they are out there keeping the Alternative alive. It may not be on the stratospheric levels that Nevermind was, but it is bands like Broken Baby who are still carrying the torch for independent, alternative rock, and keeping those acolytes like myself from losing faith.
Their record, Late Stage Optimism, released today, is a solid second record. Late Stage Optimism is a follow up to their first release, 2018’s S/T LP Broken Baby. Their first LP had more keyboards on it, more of a new wave influence in its instrumentation and its chord progression (if that’s the right word for it — I know almost nothing about music theory.) On the first album there was some disco-channeling songs like “It’s my Show”, and some political songs that could have found a comfortable home on a Talking Heads record, like “The Year of the Fat Man”. It really was an adventurous and experimental record that paid respectful homage to a range of influences and challenged people to attempt to define the band.
Late Stage Optimism, I’d say, is a bit more straight forward Alternative Rock. Amber Bollinger’s vocals are still sung at full volume, with every bit of the enthusiasm and sugary fun she has showcased on the band’s earlier LP and EPs/singles and matched perfectly to the mood of the band’s songs. Alex Dezen’s guitar work is still rockin and as precise as a Ginsu knife. But there is a departure from the genre-bending of the previous LP, and a full embrace of a more modern form of alternative rock, verging into pop song construction regularly. All tunes on the record are quite upbeat high energy rock tunes, which generates a cadence that drives the record relentlessly forward.
I have very little negative to say about the record. If I have pretensions to being a music critic, part of that conceit is that I give the goods and the bads. I get that, but I do not know music well enough to find any fault in the music itself, and have to fall back on my taste. So, in terms of my taste, I can say that I do miss some of the synthesizers that the band used on their first record and their eps. I didn’t really think about those synthesizers and the different tones they brought to the band until I went back over some of Broken Baby’s older music, and noticed their prevalence in earlier music.
The lack of extensive keyboard usage sort of stripped the New Wave flavors that the band used to play with out of this record almost entirely. But if you want a good example of Broken Baby’s use of synth keyboards, look no further than their first EP from 2017. One of my favorite songs by this band, and one which featured keyboards and had a very 80s aesthetic was their early song “Shovel Up” on their first EP. If you haven’t heard this gem of righteous early 80s nostalgia, I encourage you not only to listen to the tune, but also check out the video where Bollinger positively abuses her office’s photocopying privileges. You can hear how they employed the synth to great effect.
The lack of the synth is not necessarily an all-bad thing. It makes room for an explicitly “rock” record. Late Stage Optimism sounds less like something from the mid 1980s and something more from the Garage Rock Revival in the early 00s. I mean that in the best way — the most awesome and memorable music of the last 20 years, for lovers of rock at least, came at the first part of it. The production on the record gives us massive drums, a bigger than life bass, and piercing guitars which would be familiar to the veterans of mid 1990s Alternative. All of it pairs well with the vocals, supplied primarily by Bollinger but with Dezen playing a more prominent role in backing vocals and harmonizing than on earlier work. The sound of the production takes me squarely into the years 1995–2005, after grunge but before soundcloud/indie/bedroom pop.
Stand out songs on this record for me are “Hand Heat”, “Madonna’s a Dick” and “Manic Panic.” On “Hand Heat” we see the band offer a Big Rock anthem worthy of Blue Album-era Weezer. The guitars start off a bit dissonant, and are replaced by a driving bass and a trap kit which positively THUMPS. Bollinger’s vocals are sweet and vulnerable, and communicate adoration of the subject of the song, even as they also connote a familiarity that is years-long. The chorus screams “RAWK STAR” and the bridge matches a crunchy lead with huge fills on the drums. It is just a massive song that is oddly buried at the end of the record, but it is by far, in my opinion the best song on the record. I just love this song and it has been on constant rotation for me for about a week now.
Bonus: You will notice that Amber references the band Nada Surf in the chorus: If you want ridiculously huge Rawk (and I know you do), click this link. You will totally hear this song’s sonic spiritual ancestor, maybe great great uncle… See also, Nada Surf’s Ulsterman Cousins Ash, who, man for man, produced the most blistering pop rock of the decade and LA’s that dog, who’s bring in that saccharine sweetness in the vocals mixed with feedback driven acidic guitar licks, a granola crunchy bass, boomblasting drums, and… a violin. All these megalith bands contributed to the sound that, 25 years later would be inherited by Broken Baby on the last song on their sophomore LP.
“Madonna’s a Dick” is a send up of the double standard that the industry placed on Madonna specifically, and women in general. What I mean is that Madonna was treated as a sex symbol, and admittedly made a lot of money doing that. And yet she was also excoriated by the same industry for her sexuality and her efforts to control her image. The song suggests that if Madonna was a man, acting how she did in being open about her life and for which she was pilloried to some degree, she’d be rewarded, and would probably get elected to high office. The message of the song is righteous outrage at the double standard, and could serve as a descendent of Riot Grrrl in the 2020s. See, for example, Joan Jett-produced “Rebel Girl” by Bikini Kill, which I would secretly LOVE to hear Broken Baby cover (ahem!).
Sonically speaking, this song is one of the more unique sounding songs on the record. It employs glam era fuzz on the guitar, which I think makes it sound classic. The last time I heard that kind of guitar tone was on a Strokes album; 2012’s Angles certainly channeled the hard rock of the 1970s, most notably on the song “Gratisfaction”, which, when I reviewed it in 2011, I noted that it sounded, in turn, like a song that Thin Lizzy never got around to preforming. While Angles is technically after the Garage Rock Revival era, maybe one other band is as associated with the period as the Strokes, and that would be The White Stripes, whose singer and guitarist is name dropped by Broken Baby on this record as well. I think this similarity instantly draws a connection between this record and the last real movement in Alternative, before Alternative became Indie, and then more or less lost all meaning as a term or genre or scene in the second half of the 00s.
Finally “Manic Panic” is just a fun rock song that once more draws on a disco rhythm, but I dare say it is far faster than any disco song I have ever heard. Its actually more reminiscent of one of my favorite tunes from that above mentioned Garage Rock Revival period, Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out” if that song was sped up about 200%. One could listen to “Manic Panic” and easily imagine a go-go scene with all sorts of people dancing and having a great time while jamming out to this really fun tune. Or: if your imagination isn’t that good, you can actually watch the video which features the band playing the tune for their myriad fans.
As a side note — the style of video here is an artifact of the Pandemic, where bands would make videos with fans dialing in while singing their tunes and having a good time dancing around and etc. It was not, however created by the pandemic. Years before, there were videos like this, where fans would either sing along or comment on the video while the song was playing. Most notable in my memory is Veruca Salt’s “It’s Holy” from 2016 and Cake’s 2001 single “Short Skirt/Long Jacket”. I digress… “Manic Panic” is the funnest song on the record, for my money.
I enjoyed “Meat Week” because it has a great and unusual time signature, and features some full on punk attitude which fits in really well with the rest of the record. I also really liked “Jack White Money”, which actually seems to contain a sample of something at the beginning, but talks about the perception that some aspirations can only be met by success, of the degree enjoyed by Jack White — thankfully an explicit reference to the Garage Rock Revival I have been referencing throughout this review.
Broken Baby is a fantastic band that makes really enjoyable music. It is also a fact that I like them personally. I suppose, having literally consumed everything they have recorded, on the verge of actually pushing the button to get this record on vinyl, I could call myself a fan. That’s important only in so far as you, the reader, understands that I happily took the opportunity to review this sophomore LP from a band I will happily listen to as long as they keep rocking in the future.
This record, on its own merits, has a huge sound that is very welcome, and is fitting for the anniversary of this most important date in modern rock history. I am glad to see the legacy of the earthquake that hit US culture that day in this record, released thirty years later. Late Stage Optimism is a great Alternative record, though it carries the bands sound a bit closer to pop (11 songs and a total run time of just about exactly 34 minutes. I mean; come on!) But that only means that it is more accessible than some of the earlier stuff to new listeners, who will still have plenty of opportunity to go back and check out the band’s earlier music when they are hooked on this record’s tunes. Last but not least, the album really showcases both Bollinger’s and Dezen’s chops as musicians, in a way that lets them both do what they do best, which is rock.
If you want some good alternative, as an opportunity to see where all that stuff released way back in the day has led to, you really can’t do better today than this Late Stage Optimism. Check it out: you will not be the least bit sorry you did.
With that: Here is the Record on Spotify, but don’t forget to go check them out on Bandcamp and support them and other Independent artists if you get the chance.
