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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
Another band in pursuit of punk melody, the Wrens of New Jersey (Charles Bissell on guitar, Kevin Whelan on bass, Jerry MacDonald on drums) further lowered the level of vehemence required for entertainment and often winked at the Southern tradition. An excellent live band, they relied on their debut Silver (Grass, 1994 - Wind-Up, 2006) to spread the word: What's A Girl, Propane, Ruth, Behold Me are exemplary specimens of slightly abrasive, post-Nevermind guitar-pop. The use of piano heightens the atmosphere of Strange As Family, Learned In Space, and William. The elegant dynamics of Adenoi and Dakota compensate for the aggressive flashes of Leatherside, Crawling, and Dust.
By the time of Secaucus (Grass, 1996), the Wrens had already acquired a respectable reputation. The verve of Yellow Number Three, especially Built In Girls, I've Made Enough Friends, Surprise Honeycomb, and Hats Off To Marriage Baby, is however neutered by melodramatic ballads with Beach Boys-style vocal harmonies (Jane Fakes a Hug). Greg Whelan had matured as a composer and singer. Rest Your Head became the new single. Little remained of the punk fervor, replaced by a virulent "emo" emphasis.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
After the first two albums, only two EPs surfaced:
Low (Dow Boy, 1996), with Ruth and
Darlin Darlin,
and
Abbott 1135 (Ten 23, 1998), with Nothing To Nothing and
Fire Fire.
For mysterious reasons,
Meadowlands (Absolutely Kosher, 2003)
was surrounded by hype only comparable to Radiohead's.
Their "emo-pop" had suddenly become fashionable.
By reducing the worst excesses of lo-fi pop (read
Guided By Voices and
Pavement)
and the most trivial aspects of neo-pop (read
Neutral Milk Hotel and
Olivia Tremor Control),
and by finding a middle way between the
Pixies and the
Kinks,
they had reinvented punk-pop for the new generation
(This Boy Is Exhausted, Faster Gun, and the most Kinks-ian
of them all, Such A Pretty Lie).
They sometimes settle for mildly aggressive power-pop ditties such as
Hopeless and Everyone Choose Sides,
and occasionally sink in the molasse of yawn-inspiring ballads
(Thirteen Grand).
The bombastic Happy and the lengthy 13 Months in 6 Minutes
are good examples of how tedious their emo-muzak can get;
while Per Second Second is a tense rubber band of a song that weaves
a surreal tribal dance a` la Pere Ubu with
verve a` la Beach Boys.
Boys You Won't Remember shows how they could best spend their energies:
imitating the anthemic country-rock of Neil Young.
Not a complete disaster, but certainly the most over-rated album of the year.
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