Rocker (feedbot)
Platinum Member
There’s a good chance a lot of reviews are going to slate the new Menzingers record. ‘Everything I Ever Saw’ is so different from their raging punk past, and that’s going to alienate the folk who want to slam their feelings away. With respect, those reviews are going to be completely wrong. More than a cursory listen reveals the Menzingers have tapped into the Springsteen quality of evoking an entire scene in a single chord and conjuring a lifetime from a verse, and they’ve created an album that feels like you’re watching the world go past from a train window, ruminating on how the threads of life can knit together. ‘Everything I Ever Saw’ is stunning, aching, contradictory and an entire world compressed into eleven songs.
“We may stand have a chance, but we still gotta try,” rings the chorus of the magnificent first single ‘Chance Encounters’, song for when you realise that one tiny mis-step or missed connection, and your entire existence could have turned out differently. Those who’ve walked into your life and changed it for the better are the subject of the sun-drenched ‘Better Angels’, with its classy simplicity and hope for the future. Then we’ve got ‘Nobody’s Heroes’, a song that feels like you’re attending church except the preacher is leading a sermon on surviving life’s knock backs. It almost feels like an apology from the band for giving up their thrash – “We ain’t nobody’s heroes, because we can only be ourselves” – but they needn’t offer any restitution for changing direction. We all grow and change, and the Menzingers have entered a beautifully evocative new chapter in their careers.
Part of the pleasure of ‘Everything I Ever Saw’ are the unexpected gems that no one saw coming. ‘Other People’s Money’ is a gorgeous Robin Hood ear worm that blooms from a piano that drifts and stomps into your mind at unforeseen moments, and ‘She Enters My Dreams’ is a plain and simple song of devotion, the kind of song you wish had been written about you to spark a rom-com chain of events to find a lost love. In fact, if we told you this song was a collab with Brian Fallon, you’d probably believe us (though, to the best of our knowledge, Jersey’s finest was not involved). The whole of ‘Everything I Ever Saw’ is very Gaslight Anthem, but that’s likely by coincidence rather than design. The really “Menzingers Anthem” moments, like ‘Parade Day’ with it’s waving-your-mate-goodbye-at-the-airport energy and almost Billy Bragg lilts on the chorus, remind us how distinct their sound is, but also let us appreciate the Gaslight new direction by providing an elegant backdrop.
We’ve got no complaints at all about ‘Everything I Ever Saw’. This is a record for people who have grown with the Menzingers, and had our lives change along with theirs. We can look back on the older records with fondness, remembering a specific time when that sound grabbed us, but this is an album for where we and they are now. It’s softer, more tempered by the forces of the world, but no less vigorous than we hoped, and a record that reveals more and more to love with every playthrough.
KATE ALLVEY
“We may stand have a chance, but we still gotta try,” rings the chorus of the magnificent first single ‘Chance Encounters’, song for when you realise that one tiny mis-step or missed connection, and your entire existence could have turned out differently. Those who’ve walked into your life and changed it for the better are the subject of the sun-drenched ‘Better Angels’, with its classy simplicity and hope for the future. Then we’ve got ‘Nobody’s Heroes’, a song that feels like you’re attending church except the preacher is leading a sermon on surviving life’s knock backs. It almost feels like an apology from the band for giving up their thrash – “We ain’t nobody’s heroes, because we can only be ourselves” – but they needn’t offer any restitution for changing direction. We all grow and change, and the Menzingers have entered a beautifully evocative new chapter in their careers.
Part of the pleasure of ‘Everything I Ever Saw’ are the unexpected gems that no one saw coming. ‘Other People’s Money’ is a gorgeous Robin Hood ear worm that blooms from a piano that drifts and stomps into your mind at unforeseen moments, and ‘She Enters My Dreams’ is a plain and simple song of devotion, the kind of song you wish had been written about you to spark a rom-com chain of events to find a lost love. In fact, if we told you this song was a collab with Brian Fallon, you’d probably believe us (though, to the best of our knowledge, Jersey’s finest was not involved). The whole of ‘Everything I Ever Saw’ is very Gaslight Anthem, but that’s likely by coincidence rather than design. The really “Menzingers Anthem” moments, like ‘Parade Day’ with it’s waving-your-mate-goodbye-at-the-airport energy and almost Billy Bragg lilts on the chorus, remind us how distinct their sound is, but also let us appreciate the Gaslight new direction by providing an elegant backdrop.
We’ve got no complaints at all about ‘Everything I Ever Saw’. This is a record for people who have grown with the Menzingers, and had our lives change along with theirs. We can look back on the older records with fondness, remembering a specific time when that sound grabbed us, but this is an album for where we and they are now. It’s softer, more tempered by the forces of the world, but no less vigorous than we hoped, and a record that reveals more and more to love with every playthrough.
KATE ALLVEY