by Eli Shively (@shivelyeli)
Who remembers a time when punk rock had to be tough anyway? From where most of us in the year 2016 are sitting, it seems like ancient history. The best punk records in this day and age often skew emo, but not in the now genre-fied sense of the word — rather an expression of a great deal of vulnerability once the listener starts to chip away at all the noise.
Romantic, the second “full-length” (about 17 minutes, to be exact) LP from Philly’s Mannequin Pussy takes each part of this particular mixture to the extreme. On one end, there’s the subject material: vocalist/guitarist Marisa Dabice pushes introspection after anxious introspection into the mic via her dynamic-defying wail, wearing her heart on her sleeve just moments before ripping it off and throwing it in the audience’s face.
This seemingly painful yet liberating process is of course assisted by the rest of the band. The supporting cast rallies behind her again and again, churning out loud-soft-loud jams (“Romantic”) on top of hardcore terrors (“Ten”) on top of defiant fuzz rock-fests (“Emotional High”). The instrumentation blends with the vocals in peaks and lifts them up in sparse, but striking valleys, accentuating every last one of Dabice’s heart-punching lines with an addictive chorus of noise. Everything spills forth all at once, in a head-spinningly delightful way.
The result of all this is a record that begs, no, demands multiple listens. It doesn’t hurt that Dabice’s lyrics are nearly impossible for any romantically confused twenty something to not find some meaning in — “Everyone here looks like everyone else / I’m in hell” will ring painfully true for anyone who’s ever found themselves feeling alone at a crowded party or bar, longing for something (or someone) special to come along.
But that’s how it’s always worked, right? If you go looking, you’ll come up empty handed. Might as well use all that pent-up energy to play some blistering, aggressively revealing punk instead — maybe you’ll end up with a record as good as Romantic.