Quarterbacks - Quarterboy
(2014 DBL DBL WHAMMY)
I've never been the type to swoon over all-acoustic solo recordings, but I do have a strong affection for demos, especially those of bands that I've closely followed. As a disciple of Quarterbacks' twangy, shambolic brand of twee-pop, the announcement that their upcoming tape release, Quarterboy, which heavily incorporates both of these elements, left me intrigued, but unable to predict as to whether it would blow me away, or leave me utterly unaffected. The one thing I could be sure of is that there wouldn't be a middle ground. Recently, the album was posted for early streaming on wonderingsound.com alongside an interview with the project's frontman Dean Engle. Normally, I'd just scroll straight to the album and save the interview for later, but something made me pause. I spotted a line of the review that mentioned that Engle was a major fan of both Tiger Trap and Henry's Dress, which stopped me dead in my internet-browsing tracks. A few months ago, I impulse-bought a split seven inch record that featured both of those bands, and it's proven to be one of my favorite records, a perfect fusion between punk aggression and saccharine c86 pop. This made me much more confident in this record. It was finally time for me to jump in and listen to it.
Most twee, though pleasant, can be rather emotionally one-dimensional: either happy or sad and usually excessively so. I felt a bit of that on Quarterbacks' 2012 tape, Loveseat. The tracks were lovely and concise, but lyrically, cute to the point where it felt forced. With this new release, it's not so straightforward. The songs aren't as much reflections on feelings but, rather, specific thoughts at a particular moment in time. The emotion is left to the listener's own reaction to these memories. As a teenager, Engle's newest songs particularly resonate with me, awkward memories of girls, each of them holding a piece of him, portals through which one can view snapshots of his life, some cozy, some not so much. For me, the most lyrically powerful of these tracks is "Center", which is about knocking on someone's door, waiting for them to open it, a practice that I still find mortifyingly uncomfortable. And on "Pool", "ONE TIME I SHOWED YOU A SONG / YOU ONLY THOUGHT THAT IT WAS KIND OF GOOD / I NEVER PLAYED IT AGAIN / IT WASN'T EVEN ABOUT YOU". Listening to lines like that gives me the feeling of brushing my teeth in the morning and remembering something stupid I said three years ago and thinking about that the whole car ride to school. Somehow, it really works for me in the context of this album. In short, the songs make me feel kinda sad, but oftentimes about things only covered peripherally in Engel's verse. Combined with crunchy, Sentridoh-esque acoustic chords and the occasional keyboard drum machine beat, Quarterboy is positively sublime.
"A UNIVERSE THAT FINALLY WORKS
HOW YOU ALWAYS SUSPECTED
WITH YOURSELF NEAR THE CENTER
AS I GET OLDER
I RECOGNIZE THAT LOVE
IS MOSTLY SITUATIONAL"
HOW YOU ALWAYS SUSPECTED
WITH YOURSELF NEAR THE CENTER
AS I GET OLDER
I RECOGNIZE THAT LOVE
IS MOSTLY SITUATIONAL"
