lambchops's Full Review: New Times by Violent Femmes
Remember Angela Chase and her Kool-Aid red hair bouncing around her bedroom to the sounds of the Violent Femmes? I’m sure you do, if like me you were a teen when My So Called Life graced the small screen.
It was on that momentous television occasion that I discovered the band responsible for such quirky classics as Blister in the Sun (the song from the aforementioned drama), Add It Up, Gone Daddy Gone and American Music. There are few things in life more electric than popping 1993 Greatest Hits compilation Add It Up into the stereo and dancing around the house like an idiot. And who hasn’t heard their music at one point in time?
But the pace the band set their career at with their incredible 1983 eponymous debut was not to continue. In the two decades that have since passed, the albums released have been pretty hit-and-miss. Mostly, the band just changed and morphed from moment to moment. With a difficult to describe rock sound, they often blended in elements of folk and country not to mention a wry sense of humor that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. In all, the Violent Femmes are best consumed in small doses and it is on that self-titled debut and compilation Add It Up that most of their “great” music can be found.
In the 1990’s, long-time percussionist Victor DeLorenzo left in lieu of a solo career. Remaining founding members singer/guitarist Gordon Gano and bassist Brian Ritchie recruited Guy Hoffman in his place just in time for the recording and release of 1994’s New Times. It was the band’s first and only effort for Elektra for a pretty solid reason. I’m certain that Elektra was hoping that their big budget would allow the band to record an excellent album. New Times wasn’t what they had in mind.
The album proves a challenge. It is indeed wry, but also tense and challenging and not at all what I expected. It’s the kind of disc that throws the listener for an unexpected and most likely unwanted loop. New Times is a strange bird to say the least—it is eccentric, stylistically schizophrenic, and absolutely unlike the band’s previous efforts. If this was a real effort to alienate and discard previous fans, then the Violent Femmes should consider it to be mission accomplished. But notice I’ve not said that New Times is an awful album. It is not. Rather, it’s not going to have the same resounding appeal as their more popular albums.
As little chart success as the album experienced, I recall one song from New Times. Remember the chunky modest hit Breakin’ Up? It’s here. In fact, it is the only song that made any splash at all. Smartly, the song is also one of the least strange and simplest offerings here. It’s clear why the record company released this song over—say—Machine or Jesus of Rio. Breakin’ Up is actually a reference to the similarly titled Neil Sedaka song. But of course, the Violent Femmes inject a dark, thick, and outstandingly bizarre edge to the subject matter. The track is slow, plodding, and definitely a Femmes classic. And the lyrics and accompanying sound are in a word “cool:”
They said "Breakin' up"
They said "It's hard to do"
But what they say
About breakin' up
Y'know it's just not true
Of course, as I’ve indicated this song doesn’t in the least bit match up with the other twelve on New Times. The album starts out normally enough with the fine (but not great) Don’t Start Me With The Liquor. As strange as it sounds coming from my lips, I like the country flavor of the track. It works well with the sharply struck drums and distinctive bass guitar. This positive direction is broken by the next song, New Times. It is boring, bland, and completely impossible to enjoy—mostly because of Gano’s horribly nasal voice.
The first five songs here are all pretty much typical Violent Femmes selections—hard rocking and intended to be fun. Also notably decent are I Am Nothing and I Saw You In The Crowd. As New Times progresses it gets much weirder. Low, muddy, and almost entirely derived from electronic dance beats Machine is the start of where this album goes down a different path. I won’t say it is a horrible song, but it is completely confusing and absolutely atypical for the band.
Bizarre selections are peppered throughout the rest of the album. The funky, novel Agamemnon, the slow This Island Life laced with psychedelics, the distinctive and ethnic not to mention theremin-laced Mirror Mirror that ends with an absolutely horrid Avant-garde jazz improvisation, and finally there Jesus of Rio which is nicely done but not at all fitting to the album.
I guess I “get” what this album is supposed to be doing, but I just don’t “get” the music on the whole. It seems as though the Femmes have a split personality. On the one hand, they still show an aptitude for making kinetic and funny songs. But on the other hand, they seem to be trying a lot of new things that when set next to these typical song selections seem nothing short of horrible—even though in reality the majority of them have some amount of promise (not all though, definitely not all).
Overall, New Times is as inaccessible as it is strange. It’s not going to appeal to most fans of the Violent Femmes and it is certainly not going to appeal to people accustomed to the wry college rock sound of their earlier work. There are enough decent songs here to save the disc from the trash bin, but not so many as to forgive the misdeeds on Machine, Mirror Mirror, and Jesus of Rio.
Rating: 2/5 stars
Track Listing:
01. Don't Start Me on the Liquor
02. New Times
03. Breakin' Up
04. Key of 2
05. 4 Seasons
06. Machine
07. I'm Nothing
08. When Everybody's Happy
09. Agamemnon
10. This Island Life
11. I Saw You in the Crowd
12. Mirror Mirror (I See a Damsel)
13. Jesus of Rio
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