Review Summary: The Menzingers on the trials of aging...
Have you ever seen a grown man cry at a festival? Well now you have, thanks to the Menzingers, a punk rock band out of Scranton Pennsylvania. The album art on their record, 'After the Party,' is quite emblematic of the themes surrounding the album. Particularly that of upon graduating to a certain age group when well, life just gets real. How can I tell that just by the cover art you may ask? Think of it this way.
We see a slowly balding man having a moment outside either a closed or abandoned carnival show, thinking about his current situation in life. Judging by his posture its safe to say he made some bad choices. Like the roller coaster in the background, in our younger years we may approach life as just a big thrill, not worrying about anything. We hop on the ride so to speak, starting out slow as we learn to walk and talk, centering ourselves in our own little world. As the ride picks up speed symbolizing our elementary and high school years we eventually open our eyes to the wider world around us, at times questioning why we hopped onto this roller coaster of life to begin with as the twists and turns start coming. Ultimately when we literally get thrown for a loop after graduation, we may just want to get off the ride and go back to how things were.
Naturally not all of us are left in tears when we reach adulthood or look back when we reach an elderly age in a state of wistfulness. What condition we're left in depends on our choices and also the outlook we have on life. We have the power to choose whether to view our situation in a negative or positive light. As evidenced by the grown man on the cover, I think it's fair to say that he has a nostalgic view of days past and is not satisfied with life as it is. I know I've been guilty of this myself, looking behind me instead of what I have in front of me. I've come to realize that what I have is actually pretty good, and being present in the moment has many benefits. One of which is being able to move forward in life, as when we constantly look behind we cannot advance in a straight line or at all.
Lyrically the group captures these themes wonderfully, essentially telling the story of a young couple and their struggles bit by bit over the course of the record. Much like the man on the cover they start out happily and gradually get hit by life repeatedly as their actions compound and come back to bite them, at least that's how I read into it.
Musically the band is a bit different than your average punk band. They employ more creative riffs which leave the individual songs with their own distinct flavor and personality. In my experience, most punk songs, more specifically punk released in the 90's and early 00's, largely have the same song structure and similar chords, resulting in the listener having great difficulty in remembering any specific track. On this record however, each recording is memorable in its own right because of both the musical presentation and the relatable lyrical content. Take the song 'Thick as Theives' for instance. There is a riff in there that is at once catchy and in a sense manifests the act of running away by using tremelo picking. That it the act of picking the guitar string rapidly up and down on a single note mimicking in my mind, the legs of a person running rapidly with the singular purpose of escaping. It's little things like this that go a long way toward making this one of their best albums to date.
