Japandroids and the Burdens of Expectation
This band created a great album, but one that bends a little too much under the weight of its own expectations
Japandroids play a unique style of music, an energetic blend of pop and rock that conjures up images of garages, backyards, and sounds like it was probably mixed on a MacBook with GarageBand (I mean that in a good way). It’s also a pretty successful style as well, garnering them an impressively loyal following that suck around during the five year gap between Celebration Rock and Near to the Wild Heart of Life. Like many of their listeners, I first listened to their newest album with a great sense of anticipation.
Near to the Wild Heart of Life is a slight letdown, though. I don’t mean this in a negative way, since it’s a good album from any perspective. But the band falls prey to sky-high expectations based on the five year gap and the success of earlier music. This newest project hits most of the right notes, but ends up sounding more like a sequel to Celebration Rock than a true progression of any kind. No matter how good the story they’re telling in these eight songs is, it’s one we’ve heard before. And it’s not quite as good as the one that came before it.
Japandroids, like many other bands, struggle when their songs start to sound over-thought or over-produced in any way. This isn’t a problem early on in the album, as the opening song (the title track) hits everything perfectly. Starting with a slowly-swelling guitar line, the music soon explodes into the cacophony of cathartic sound that makes up Japandroids’ signature.
The lyrics also fit the music beautifully. They aren’t poetic by any means, but they fit the overall sound and tone of perfectly:
The future’s under fire
The past is gaining ground
A continuous cold war between
My home and my hometown
And if every song met this mark of quality, the album would be a resounding success. But that isn’t the case. The next few songs, in fact, try and fail to match the effortless energy of the first song, and the result is a slightly-strained mix of “pretty-good” songs. It isn’t any one moment or lyric that defines what comes next, but rather the synthesis of listening to this album compared to earlier projects.
Across the internet, reactions to Wild Heart have been mixed. The Ringer’s Rob Harvilla praised the album, writing:
It’s shocking despite being not the least bit surprising; it does absolutely nothing new and still leaves you feeling like a different, superior human. It is the sound of your heart punting your liver into your brain. This band is mad corny. This band also totally rules.
A staff review at SputnikMusic was less favorable:
a record that feels as lackluster and mechanical as much of its fanbase likely did after 2016, content to go through the motions and live for the weekend. No, Near to the Wild Heart of Life succeeds only in proving that the Japandroids of 2017 will have a hard time matching their former glories.
My own opinion of the album falls somewhere in between these two. The songwriting is still competent, even if it may never match earlier heights, and at certain moments the band are able to hit all the right notes. The penultimate track, “No Known Drink or Drug,” is nearly perfect, capturing everything this group does well in just a few minutes. But as a whole, it’s hard not to compare this album to the consistent beauty of Celebration Rock, a comparison that serves primarily as a reminder of how much better the earlier project was.
And ultimately, it’s hard not to feel like the band falls prey to its own expectations here. Five years is a long time to wait between albums, and it creates nearly-impossible expectations to meet. It’s also possible that the two members felt like the had to craft a similar album to their 2012 venture to meet fans’ expectations. Their fans already fell in love with that style of music, why try and change things now?
In any case, the criticisms should be tempered with one final observation: this is a really good album. Its two best songs — “Near to the Wild Heart of Life” and “No Known Drink or Drug” — are absolutely beautiful, and both demand to be played on repeat at parties and celebrations in the future. Japandroids may never match the levels of Celebration Rock, but they can still write pretty good music.
Originally published at medium.com on February 17, 2017.
