{"id":563207,"date":"2016-05-05T09:15:56","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T13:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.fredericknewspost.com\/playlist\/?p=563207"},"modified":"2016-05-05T09:15:56","modified_gmt":"2016-05-05T13:15:56","slug":"calm-crises-real-good-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/2016\/05\/05\/calm-crises-real-good-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Calm and Crises: ‘In A Real Good Place’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ccgood\"It\u2019s just so raw. It\u2019s just so \u2026 good.<\/span><\/p>\n

D.C. rock act Calm & Crises claim that their debut LP, \u201cIn A Real Good Place,\u201d was recorded between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m. and it makes all the sense in the world. Sometimes, it\u2019s sloppy. Sometimes, it\u2019s loose. There are moments so simple, yet so poignant for reasons impossible to fully explain. Other times, it just sounds like three dudes jamming in a basement very late at night, all inhibitions be damned.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet no matter how you cut it, no matter how you look at it, once these 11 songs conclude, it\u2019s just so hard to have any other reaction than, \u201cIt\u2019s just so raw. It\u2019s just so \u2026 good.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It begins the only real way it could: With Jake Diamond\u2019s driving drums and an unforgiving guitar riff that rocks harder than your uncle\u2019s Nine Inch Nails tour t-shirt. \u201cMoving Parts\u201d hits all the right buttons, complete with backing gang vocals and a faded falsetto hook that won\u2019t leave your head. Even the few moments of imperfection are forgiven \u2014 a mis-hit kick drum here, a cracked vocal there \u2014 because they actually enhance the production. Add in a bridge that shines a light on Andrew Jordan\u2019s bass soloing skills and these guys immediately win your heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s mostly because singer Peter Bonaventure gives you his. It starts with a line like \u201cAll of my friends from back home are moving away\/Everybody\u2019s changing, me I\u2019m just staying the same\u201d on \u201cMoving Parts\u201d and it ends almost 40 minutes later with the anguished repetition of a passage like \u201cI\u2019m barely here.\u201d The guy has a little Jesse Lacey in him, the way he can break from whine to scream on a dime and the way he forces you to believe every single note that leaves his lips. It\u2019s an anxious energy not easy to come by, especially in the current indie rock world.<\/span><\/p>\n

But he gets there, especially on songs like \u201cLife of the Party\u201d and \u201cTraffic.\u201d The former is downright subversive, moving at a slow-burn 6\/8 time-signature driven by easy bass and drums. Yet when the palm-muted guitar opens up, so does Bonaventure, before dropping everything except the four-string as the trio\u2019s leader hushes \u201cI\u2019m the life of the party and it\u2019s eating me up\u201d over brilliantly placed background hoots and hollers. Throw a chorus of vocals behind it, and the track becomes a call to arms, a chant you only wish you could yell.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the latter kicks up the pace to a double-time train-beat groove more commonly heard in contemporary bluegrass. It\u2019s a road-trip meditation that follows a protagonist through all the various lonely emotions a road-trip typically brings. He hates everybody. He loves everybody. And there\u2019s no one on the road but him. It\u2019s an obvious metaphor, but it works, especially as the second verse turns from bluegrass to punk. By the time Bonaventure boils over toward the song\u2019s end, his passenger seat deserves to be filled.<\/span><\/p>\n

It works when it\u2019s quiet, too. \u201cCabernet Sauvignon\u201d is the requisite acoustic song, but the group\u2019s leader weaves a tale worth your time. Filled with heartbreak, wine and Lou Reed, the song becomes as intoxicating as its namesake, floating through the speakers with whimsy yet cutting just as deep with a line like, \u201cThe source of love and suffering is sitting on my bed.\u201d Sure, the track is perhaps the set\u2019s most tender moment, but don\u2019t underestimate this lyricist\u2019s ability to paint pictures.<\/span><\/p>\n

And don\u2019t underestimate this band\u2019s ability to rock. \u201cAlone in the Sea\u201d takes from mid-1990s alternative radio and updates the formula slightly, bringing the grunge from one Washington to the other. It\u2019s the record\u2019s longest and most accessible track because of the guitar pattern alone. \u201cAbandon Ship\u201d is a subtle piece of groove split into two parts, the second act turning the trio\u2019s omnipresent angst and energy way beyond a mere 11. And \u201cPenultimate,\u201d in addition to being a sly wink toward the end of the album, culminates with Bonaventure shouting \u201cLife is something I can live without\u201d and you wouldn\u2019t expect anything less.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s because \u201cIn A Real Good Place\u201d taps into all the feels you thought you left behind when you canceled your subscription to \u201cAlternative Press\u201d magazine. Love or hate what they\u2019re going for, Calm & Crisis are awfully good at what they do, and what they do is combine the in-your-face ethos of traditional punk with the updated accessibility that allowed the genre to go mainstream in the mid-2000s, all the while staying true to a grunge aesthetic. Or, in other words, they don\u2019t care what you think; they just want to wear their hearts on their sleeves and rock the hell out. And frankly, they\u2019re all the better for it.<\/span><\/p>\n

So raw. So good.<\/span><\/p>\n

*** 3 1\/2 STARS OUT OF 4 ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s just so raw. It\u2019s just so \u2026 good. D.C. rock act Calm & Crises claim that their debut LP, \u201cIn A Real Good Place,\u201d was recorded between the hours…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-563207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}