It’s a tricky dance, negotiating the terrain of uptempo post-New Wave power-pop. You want to be playful, but you don’t people to taste the cotton-candy. You love Joy Division so much that you can’t help but cover them, but you also want to make heads bop. When you strike gold, you end up with an absolutely killer tune, but when you emphasize one element too much the whole thing sort of falls apart.
I mention all this because I’ve been listening to the new record from The Motion Sick, from close-to-home Boston. It’s called The Truth Will Catch You, Just Wait… and it demonstrates pretty clearly many of the pitfalls inherent in this sort of effort, while also demonstrating how well it can work on occasion.
First, the lows. There aren’t really any bad songs, but there are more than a few entirely forgettable ones. Start with “The Owls Are Not What They Seem” – wonderful homage in the title notwithstanding – and album opener “Jean-Paul” which I think it supposed to be sinister and dark, but which comes off to me as dreary and poorly-paced more than anything else. Oh, and that Joy Division cover turns out to be a pretty straightforward version of “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”
On the other hand, there is the delightfully airy “Walk on Water.” It’s guided by a bouncing, almost alt-country riff and features a chorus which may lose a point or two for corniness but makes it all back up and more for its sheer joy.
And there’s there’s the final track, “30 Lives (Up-Up-Down-Dance Mix)” – yes, that’s the Konami Code, which anyone who also grew up in the 90s will surely recognize. This is a remix of the album’s second tracks, and it is one of those remixes that is sure to divide folks evenly into two categories. The first will insist that it completely ruins a great song. The second will absolutely adore it.
I fall firmly into the second category. Sure, it’s totally ridiculous, but I just can’t resist the exuberance of this version. Anyone can crank out a nice pop melody, but this has a certain joie de vive that is really rare in music.
Walk on Water – The Motion Sick
30 Lives (Up-Up-Down-Down Dance Mix) – The Motion Sick
The Day After – The Motion Sick (from 2006’s Her Brilliant Fifteen)