Anterrabae - Shakedown Tonight!Sonically speaking, you could probably slip Shakedown Tonight! right before or right after Last Night in Town and not raise too many eyebrows. Both records may sound a little immature compared to what Every Time I Die would go go on to accomplish, but immaturity is half their appeal: there are as many moments of half-assed brilliance on Last Night in Town as flat-out brilliant ones, sometimes side by side in the same song, and the batting average is so even across the board that you can still find some of its songs mixed into the band’s recent setlists. Despite a consensus that Every Time I Tie have moved far beyond this kind of kind of songwriting, “Emergency Broadcast Syndrome,” “Jimmy Tango’s Method,” and “The Logic of Crocodiles” remains fan favorites; and for those who miss this volcanic period of growth for the band, Shakedown Tonight! has a big, sloppy grin on its face just for you. Anterrabae hail from Long Island, but they don’t sit very well beside the likes of Agnostic Front, Vision of Disorder, and Cro-Mags. They don’t take themselves very seriously at all. Shakedown Tonight! is a keg party in audio form, full of cheerfully berserk riffing and the faintest inklings of emo, perhaps a byproduct of landing on Triple Crown Records. The songwriting, however, couldn’t be further removed the label’s typical fare. Shakedown Tonight! can barely hold onto its breakdowns, gang chants, tempo changes, shout-alongs, and sing-alongs from the moment “How Joey Got His Groove Back” kicks in, through the twitchy “Dressed To Thrill” and the frenetic “Curfews, Alcohol, and Other Jealousy Related Incidents”; it’s only this song’s gooey acoustic center and “Clever Shoplifting Tactics” that hints at their labelmates in Brand New and Folly before “Etcetera” gets things back on track. A swift kick of dissonance and Drowningman-lite nihilism, this song is exemplary of Anterrabae’s offbeat lyrics: Lesson one: involves a slice of rye and a hand grenade. A reminder to what we once were, a mere glimpse as to all that we will become. Black preceding black. A hint of life (of nothingness) sporadically appears though, as if fate is having fun with us. Vertical incisions require more imagination. Lies are not lies when you're fooling yourself. Lesson two: and the maturity factor. White lined trophies and black book romances just prove walking before crawling. It's pretty hard to keep that tan through the cracks in the walls and it's quite sad to know that you're condemned to long sleeves and food stamps because when he was trying to save you from this place, you were alright. This is the universal. Lesson three: I'm still screaming. “Ready Set Explode” is all about its nasty, lurching breakdowns, after which “Her Face Was A Sturdy In Martyred Innocence” acts as a melancholy reprieve (its chants of “I’m sorry is never enough” are surprisingly emotive), but otherwise, it’s one of the album’s only true stumbles, preferring to recycle a couple of tricks we’ve already heard the band pull off earlier on Shakedown Tonight!, and with more style. It’s better thought of as a bit of downtime before the absolute riff-a-thon of “Engage Catch Phrase,” which packs energetic call-and-response vocals and may just be the highlight of the record. “Nevertheless She Was a Mess” bristles with pinch harmonics, and true-to-form, is some of the messiest and most uninhibited music on the album - you can almost feel the stagedive injuries as brilliant lines like “Beware! I have a disease where borderline intolerance fucks lethargy in rhythmic fashion!” cut through the mix. The sizzling fretwork of “Mending Tones from Vowels and Frowns” would make a great note to end on if not for the obligatory balladry of “CA Speech Goodbye.” Here’s the other stumble on Shakedown Tonight!: it may get off to a promising start with a bass-led introduction, but the songwriting is stilted and awkward, and the decision to rely on weak vocal melodies and subdued guitar plunking deprives the record of a proper ending. It almost seems as if Anterrabae were aiming for something grand and conclusive, either a spoof or an honest attempt at an emotional epic, but they fall so short of that mark that it simply leaves the listener wondering what happened as the album peters out, falls flat, and fades to black. Most people’s introduction to Anterrabae is by way of the Bomb the Music Industry! song “Happy Anterrabae Day!!!” With its vulgar synth and corny hard-rock build-up, Long Island’s history of venerated hardcore acts isn’t quite the first thing on the listener’s mind; but when the song picks up with the band’s energetic style of punk, it begins to make sense. Lyrically, the song addresses the misdirected aggression of your typical mosh-bro, making a number of insights along the way-- “we're all here for the same stupid reason / we all like some stupid band,” and “Think about the reason you went to shows at twelve years old / We all felt alone” are my favorites. They named this song after Anterrabae for a pretty simple reason: they agree that music, no matter how “hard,” should be fun. -Brian L.
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