Originally published in The Forest Scout:
It doesn’t take a relatable mind to admit the importance of our youth’s culture — only a keen one. It’s hardly news that a deeper look into the millennial underworld will erode some preconceived notions of the vulgarity and recklessness it’s mistaken for — the best and brightest art forms representing our younger crowd are not only varied but meditative as well.
There are always, of course, two things going on at once; as rap and hip-hop — each entirely legitimate styles in their own right — climb the historical ladder to assume their position as the defining spirit for today’s teenagers, a quieter, less political yet equally significant subgroup marks out its territory as well. Think of the creative offspring of Mac DeMarco, Tame Impala, and Bradford Cox, those who identify with the “alternative” movement, whose music — at times futuristic, at times vintage, and most interesting when employing both traits at once — demands to be played on good old-fashioned record players, for whom basements and garages are refuges for studio magic and for whom the highest compliments are “chill” or “groovy.” The sense of community it wields is familiar; the fact that its sole purpose is to preserve that atmosphere is enough to make it self-enabling. Does a tree make a sound when it falls over in the forest? Today’s “silent rock” seems to answer that, whether you’re there to see it happen or not, it’s going to fall over anyway.
It’s an attitude that’s showcased in “Winnie and Rue,” the title track off of the local musical group Chive’s second album released this past Friday. At first listen, the cut’s narrator is a free spirit, speaking from his chest and threatening to run away from his hometown rather than become part of the grounded, drone-like adult standard that surrounds him. From a lyrical standpoint, Chive doesn’t fall prey to the bratty, escapist Lake Forest stereotype. Not to say that any of the band members’ credentials are based off of class disparities, nor that their prospects are pretentious. That said, how does this track manage to sound like the real deal?
Yes, the surface tells us that the band — composed of Spencer Schmid alternating between bass and keyboard, Matthew Adams handling guitar, and Matt Ackman on drums (with the recent addition of Landon Kerouac on bass) — are hung up on the suburbs in some of its aspects; Lake Bluff natives, of all people, should know whether they’re cut out for it. However, the key to the track’s impact, most likely, is that although Chive appears — almost pretends — to be spontaneous in its conception (as Schmid and Ackman momentarily pause their alternate Graphic, their collaboration with Ben Cvijovic and Brede Baldwin), the band proves they understand the plight of the on-deck generation from multiple directions. The emotionally ballistic bars that end the song pose that our narrator is more vulnerable as he seems (“Uh oh, I’m halfway gone / Try to change my mind, try to tell me I’m wrong”); Winnie & Rue isn’t rebellious as much as it is bipartisan.
Consider that within three short tracks of this gradually building rocker, the band rotates nearly 180 degrees to a ballad, specifically “We Need You Too.” Implicit desires pivot from the driving force to the liability as Schmid pleads for someone, a figure in the song, to come back to him, perhaps physically, perhaps mentally. It’s a slow dance without a partner, the auditory embodiment of a void in one’s life. It’s a sad song; the backgrounds recall Lou Reed at his most subtle, and Schmid’s a dead ringer for Ray Davies, only here he vibes more like “Waterloo Sunset” than the “You Really Got Me” influence that Chive radiates on other parts of Winnie & Rue. These young musicians echo the universal aura of James Dean, aware that defiance and acceptance can be two sides of the same coin. They’re already crowd-pleasers, but the reason why they are will still make sense when you pull the record out in a couple of years.
The best description for some will be “garage rock,” though Chive knows better than to devolve into head-banging. They’re an emphatic band, but a smart one; even if they don’t have the technology to cut corners, it sure sounds as though they do, an advantage they certainly don’t take for granted. Chive has used the most out of the two months they’ve spent recording Winnie & Rue; there’s some leeway given to each of the songs, and reverbs and amplifier squeals are allowed to sneak into the transitions, rounding out their spacious nature. The band never really returns to the alien-invasion-like transmissions that begin the album with the simply named “Intro,” but musical flow remains an important component to the album throughout the whole. The songs aren’t simply ordered based on what idea came first; an appropriate progression is laid out for us.
Though Chive is wide open in the sensory margins, it’s often hard to tell who they are through their lyrics (though an accompanying booklet posted on Facebook underlines the riveting connotations they might carry). Characters evoke mixed feelings, and thought patterns often circle. The vocals are used primarily as instruments, yet their poetry contains inner-conflict. After two consecutive tracks about the troubles in chasing after love (“Frame On the Wall” is a little more hopeful than the somber “Not Too Good”), the band loosens up their riffs for “Grown Kids,” even though the song’s wordplay is a little more indecisive, sidestepping between passive and active (“Feeling groovy, gonna grow out my hair / Look for something and it’s just not there”).
Nevertheless, where it works (and it works very often), the album speaks for itself. The second half is more tonally homogeneous than its counterpart, but it’s no less entertaining. “People and Poles” knows how good its hook is; it’s catchy enough for FM. Even the first half’s wistful “Working Hands” comes at the right time and place in the record, a psychedelic endeavor that practically tears down and restarts the album’s course midway through its rising action.
Winnie & Rue, in full, comes in at a modest length. It’s a bold statement, but a concise one, barely reaching over thirty minutes in total. Even as Chive more than doubles its entire discography with the addition of its new LP, it’s a real party crasher when “Lost in Rome,” complete with multiple tempo fake-outs, sends out its last farewell. It’s a climactic conclusion that makes sense. It’s also one that comes too soon.
The taper feeds well into the band’s ideology. If you listen to their words, Chive seems to think that their days of youth are over. Perhaps it’s philosophically so, but musically, if we’re fortunate enough, we’ll be able to listen to them for a while longer. In the same breath, their latest release also stresses the passing of time (“Kiss me while you can / ‘cause I’m smoking down your street”). They speak to their audience now, at a certain age in a certain era. That could look like something completely different in the road ahead; Winnie & Rue states not what that means at the moment but, more critically, what it feels like.
