Come Back Big Brother – The Rutabega
I feel like the dominant trend in music these days is the power of cool. Synths, sleek rhythms, laid-back beats: these are the sounds of the millennium. Even the return of disco, which seems to have reached critical mass sometime in the spring, has been all about its re-birth by way of neo-European sensibilities meant to position it as the progenitor of EDM.
And I get why this is appealing. There’s something, well, inestimably cool about coolness. But when you get down to it, there are few things I want more than someone with a guitar, a bunch of rough edges, and a whole lot of feelings.
And so I am filled with joy to hear this album, of passion, of endeavor, of heartbroken love and impossible desire. In the midst of a sea of detached coolness, The Rutabega stand tall, a lighthouse in the dark, holding up a flame. Brother the Lights Don’t Work is a marker which simply says: we remain, we keepers of the faith, unbowed and unyielding. And there is a warm port in the storm for any who would come join us.
This is communicated in the most simple form possible. These songs feature one set of drums, one guitar, and yet manage to crash as heavily as a harvest thunderstorm.
This all is distilled most fully on the glorious “Come Back Big Brother.” Its centerpiece is a staccato guitar line that rings like it was played by Johnny B. Goode, and which reminds me of everything that has ever been great about rock and roll. By comparison, “Through the Holes in the Floor” is far quieter but no less moving. It features a more gentle and jangly guitar line and feels like wrapping yourself up in a blanket on a chilly autumn evening.
The essence of the album, though, is the epic, world-defining 12 and a half minute long “Turn on the Summer,” which sounds like everything wonderful about Sunny Day Real Estate collapsed into a single track. It develops out of a deceptively low-key riff, and marches at a stately, almost austere pace. But with each passing minute the tension grows and grows, until the guitar notes are falling all around you, as if the sky itself were a huge pane of glass that has shattered and is now crashing to earth.
And lord almighty if it doesn’t sound good.