Big Troubles: Romantic Comedy (2011)

Este año desgraciadamente no puedo hacer el mismo anuncio que realicé el año pasado con el primer disco de Big Troubles.  Por entonces, los de New Jersey se alzaban con el primer puesto en mi lista de preferencias personales del 2010.
Romantic Comedy, sin ser en absoluto un mal disco, no es Worry (2010). Big Troubles han querido darle un giro a su sonido, alcanzando un grado de madurez que todavía no les pertenecía. Personalmente, hubiera soñado porque su sonido sucio de guitarras continuase al menos durante un disco más, porque su furia afilada hubiera surcado las ondas de los temas de Romantic Comedy, pero no ha sido así.
Como digo, este segundo álbum no es un mal disco, en absoluto, y es muchísimo mejor que bastante de la producción Noise-Pop de este año, pero echo mucho de menos la distorsión, la urgencia, el nervio de aquel. Romantic Comedy convierte a Big Troubles en algo así como los nuevos Teenage Fanclub, pero a los TFC de  Grand Prix, y no a los de los comienzos. A golpe de producción, toda aquella distorsión, todo aquel Fuzz-Lo-Fi da paso a distorsiones más que contenidas, a golpes de batería engrandecidos gracias a los efectos de la mesa de mezclas, a voces mucho más limpias. A un trabajo de limpieza en el estudio, en definitiva. Y que conste, reitero, que el resultado final es notable, pero no sobresaliente, como en Worry.
Uno de los grandes responsables de este giro copernicano en su sonido ha sido el productor Mitch Easter (Rem, Pavement, Let´s Active), aunque intuyo que no el único. Las huestes de Alex Craig e Ian Drennan han limpiado absolutamente de distorsión todo su sonido, dándole un nuevo lustre a sus canciones, quedando un disco muy coqueto con bastantes arreglitos, aunque los temas ya tienen carácter propio para mantener en pie un gran disco. En un álbum donde nos encontramos con cortes como She smiles for pictures, Misery, Make it worse, Minor keys, Bad girls, Softer than science, Time bomb o Engine, evidentemente nunca vamos a salir defraudados. Tan sólo con escuchar los primeros acordes de She smiles for pictures, el tema más Teenagefanclubiano de todo el disco, ya nos conformamos.
El problema es que al estar tan alto el nivel con Worry, esperábamos un poco más de este nuevo disco de Alex e Ian. Con todo, el resultado es de notable. Y estará en nuestra lista de favoritos.

Big Troubles – Romantic Comedy (2011)

“There’s a great bit in Patton Oswalt‘s latest special that begins with him auditioning for the role of “gay best friend” and ends with a monkey explosively defecating on camera. Obviously, he got from Point A to Point B explaining how romantic comedy isn’t even really an artistic genre so much as a strict format whose monetary success is predicated on telling people what they’re getting and then giving them exactly what they want. While Romantic Comedy is too scrappy and bummed-out for usage in cute montages anytime soon, Big Troubles’ sophomore LP and first for Slumberland is still every bit as beholden to an overt sense of values: If 1990s indie revivalism gets you going like seeing Jennifer Aniston and some other dude find true love does, it’s easy to imagine a tagline saying “from the people who brought you the Pains of Being Pure at Heart and the producers from Brighten the Corners…” doing its risk-free aspirations justice.
Those familiar with last year’s super-lo-fi Worry will certainly be taken aback by Big Troubles’ spruced-up presentation, but it’s hardly surprising: It’s not like they could go much further into the red than they did on their self-produced fuzzbomb of a debut. For the most part, they err on the bookish side of the Slumberland sound, dabbling in both U.S. and UK varietals of mope-pop while producer Mitch Easter (Murmur, Let’s Active) shows a steady hand letting the ringing guitar leads and Alex Craig and Ian Drennan’s hushed vocals exist in a soft and appealing glow.
But while I don’t blame Big Troubles for reaching out to Easter, together they overshoot the mark and ultimately Romantic Comedy often feels like it’s uncomfortable using language and volume more suitable for the library. Single “Misery” is certainly the pluckiest of the bunch and has inspired a few mentions of the Smashing Pumpkins, which is on point if you can find me the pre-Adore singles without the searing guitar work, cathartic lyrics, studio polish, or Jimmy Chamberlin on the drums. A nice major-thirds riff complementing a boyish, breathy vocal only gets you to the point of Silversun Pickups.
It’s a rare record of this sort that makes you think, “If only they raged as hard as Belong does,” but Romantic Comedy innocuously charms instead of breaking hearts or breaking anything really– even the feedback-laced, vaguely glammy “Time Bomb” can’t achieve the kind of escape velocity required to get them out of sounding like a rock band that doesn’t actually rock. Still, they’re precocious songwriters who know from a good hook: If you can get past its title rhyming with “bad world,” “Sad Girls” is a exceedingly catchy Britpop genre exercise, though the big key change sounds like them pressing too hard for extra credit. Likewise, “Softer Than Science” and “Never Mine” have a gorgeous shimmer and propulsion that similarly gets over some remarkably rudimentary “mine”/”mind” rhyme schemes. I suppose you can find the economy of the lyrics to be endearing, but it makes their awkward attempt at purple social critique on “Make It Work”– “such little relevance in the perfumes of high culture”– sound like they might be making fun of the National or something.
More typically, Romantic Comedy earns its title from Craig and Drennan’s narrators mostly dealing with relationships that are ultimately doomed if they even get past the point of premature negation. It’s perfectly fine for a half hour of commiseration or wish fulfillment for romantics who take their loneliness as evidence of their humanity: a treatise on the utter futility of heterosexual relations stems from a glossy magazine ad on “She Smiles for Pictures” (sort of a simplified, non-academic version of Jawbox‘s “Savory“), “Engine” wistfully reminisces of after-school heavy petting (sort of a simplified version of Death Cab‘s “We Looked Like Giants“), and “Minor Keys” goes metacritical in its study of pop’s emotional manipulation (very much a simplified version of the Smiths‘ “Rubber Ring“). Of course, it’s a bouncy piece of jangle pop referencing something other than itself, and that’s Romantic Comedy writ small, appealing and in tune with admirable influences but ultimately lacking the sort of unpredictability or drama that can make these the songs that saved your life rather than reminiscent of ones that can” (pitchfork.com)

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