4 out of 5

Produced by: Chris Common

Label: Suicide Squeeze

Well, there is surely some indie rock egg on my face after giving Menos el Oso a relisten. Because: sure, I owned it, for years… ever since its release, actually, hyped as I was to listen to the followup to Highly Refined Pirates, which I’d pushed on many friends and binge-listened to on many an occasion, and then I found myself experiencing instant revulsion at my beloved snark rockers going pop-friendly lovey-dovey.

I suppose I was moderately prepped for this: at live shows followed Pirates’ release I was surprised at the breed of cool kids I started seeing in attendance (I got cued into MtB thanks to their hardcore band lineage), and when emo-adoring chaps at work were professing their love, I knew we were headed for magazine cover exposure soon enough. Menos el Oso’s lack of funny song titles was also a clue, but fair enough, I figured, it was time to drop that shtick anyway.

And things had, indeed, changed. The sound was much more layered, but also considerably less plugged in, keener on finding a finger-snapping beat than breaking out the distortion. Jake Snider’s lyrics had already revealed themselves to be relatively mundane (girls; growing pains), but the group seemed to initially carry with it a kind of self-aware sense of humor that made that more palatable; Menos, on the other hand, felt like we should be taking this stuff seriously. Oh, how my heart hurts when looking at cute girls during summer vacation! Thus, I rejected the album, and struggled for years and releases afterwards to “reaccept” MtB as a group I actively liked. My love/hate with the group was officially kicked off.

Coming back to listening to this album, I wasn’t much looking forward to it, recollecting annoying love ballads I’d have to sit through and analyze. Yet, much to my surprise, mine modern ears held quite a different opinion than Way Beck Then’s: this is likely a better album than Highly Refined Pirates, and probably on par with Planet of Ice as the group’s best. What I’d initially heard as a lack of finger-tapping and punk has been subsumed by much smoother implementations of the former, and choice use of the latter for better punctuation. HRP is, in fact, pretty damned uneven, with some absolute highlights and then a lot of soundalike tracks with eye-rolling electronics filler inbetween. MtB smartly ditched all those bleep-blop segueways, incorporating this element into the songs themselves. When tracks kick off in this format, flashbacks to how I’d once “heard” the disc rear their head, but in every case, a proper drumbeat and riff dropping aren’t too far away. The peaks on Menos are also much more frequent, and _louder_ than I’d allowed myself to appreciate: Drilling, The Fix, and Hooray stand toe-to-toe with their debut EP’s and debut album’s singles, with further flashes of similar energy sprinkled throughout.

Still on the critical side of things, though, are Snider’s words, and eager singing style: his college kid subject matter and inability to move a metaphor beyond a single statement or two will forever prevent this stuff from digging too deep, for better or worse, and his delivery just heightens that sensation. Which, after reassessing this album, is very much a shame, because musically, the album is mostly incredibly badass, Chris Common’s production a perfect complement to Matt Bayles’ clinical mix, and band members’ histories in technical metal / punk acts very much on display. …Making it much, much easier to forgive those few moments where you think you’re listening to Death Cab sappy pop aside.