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The Wrens
"That's it!" Little Miss Rock 'n' Roll said to me in the car last year during SXSW, as we were listening to The Meadowlands. "What?" I asked. "What's it?" "Is it just me, or does this album sound like a mixtape from another planet?" she asked. And I had to agree. Because there is no real "Wrens" sound (unless you count the inimitable pop melody core that haunts all their work, be it buried under whatever stylings they choose to pile upon it.) The songs on 2003's The Meadowlands are indeed like a mixtape from another planet, filled with hooks that could have easily been written by the likes of XTC, Brian Wilson, or Frank Black, but retain a uniquely homemade quality. Handcrafted, with love, and sent with only the warmest of wishes, the Wrens firmly state, here we are, take us as we are.
I was first introduced to their music via a mix made for me by a dear friend sometime in college. "Rest Your Head" was a natural fit for the repeat button on my CD player (yes, I remember those bygone days). And after I bought Secaucus used in the dollar bin at a record store, I remember dragging random passersby into my dormitory room, exclaiming wonderment and awe at the blistering "Built In Girls" or catchy-as-hell "Indie 500." Secaucus contains several songs that simply shout out "Listen to this! Listen to this!" to my ears.
It would be years until I would see the Wrens live, and witness the stunning urgency and manic energy they apply to their live performances. Guitar throwing, mic stands falling, the volume turned so loud as to blister the paint on the walls, and a sense of fulfillment. Years later, I would stumble out of the Luna Lounge on the Lower East Side, feeling desperately joyful, emotionally drained, entirely awake and alive, and somehow purified.
But that day in the car during SXSW 2004, when Little Miss Rock'n'Roll and I talked about mixtapes from other planets, I remember well, as we had tried to see the Wrens play an in-store somewhere in Austin. (It was to take place at a record store that has since folded.) The Wrens never showed up, having broken down (again), in Waco, Texas that afternoon, and they were very, very apologetic. Par for the course, for these guys, it seemed: they have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There's something inherently quixotic about the Wrens: their backstory (and, oh, what a backstory!) includes major label courtship rituals, arguments with the ones you love, self-aggrandizing legal representation, record label fallout, joining the dissatisfied ranks of office temps, failed relationships, one too many nights on tour and sleeping on floors, bad decisions and worse luck, living in near poverty in a house with all your bandmates, and the quest for something more meaningful despite prolonged stasis. Even if that quest meant they nearly disappeared from public view for several years, making draft upon draft of a fabled "new album," even as friends and family simply learn to stop asking about that impractical hobby.
Yet still the Wrens persevered, and finally, improbably, released that mythical new album even though so many of their colleagues had fallen to the wayside. The reception to The Meadowlands was roaring acclaim, and a mad scramble to fit a touring lifestyle into existing rituals of family and a 9-to-5 job. Which brings us to the present.
One day, last year, I realized The Meadowlands really is one of those labor-of-love mixtapes, where someone has obviously meticulously planned the segues and sequencing until everything is just so because they know the recipient will appreciate every singular detail, every tiny forethought. (It's the thought that counts, isn't it?) Except, instead of scouring the depths of a record collection to make the perfect mixtape, these four aging musicians from South Jersey took inspiration from their hearts and memories and lives. As it stands, The Meadowlands is a complete, perfectly coherent, unified package where the songs dovetail and complement each other. See it as a sort of indie rock, underdog novel, nay, an opus of middle-class, suburban New Jersey life and all its meager trappings, from the opening of "The House That Guilt Built" with crickets on a summer night as the Wrens, in their everyman guises sing about the cruel but inevitable passage of time, all the way through, to the buoyant, drunken, messy, swaying, yet life-affirming ending of the throwaway song, "This Is Not What You Had Planned." It's the way the guitars cut out at the beginning of the anthemic "Everyone Chooses Sides," the heart-breakingly direct dirge-into-explosion of "Happy," the knee-buckling jangle pop of "Ex-Girl Collection," and the slow motion rise and fall of "She Sends Kisses."
This album is all about the crazy shit you've been through, despairing drunk dials and missed connections, the could-have-beens, the should-have-beens, about that moment when you stopped your life for one second and realized you want to call a do-over, for that time you didn't say what you should have said though you were thinking it, and for the one time when you actually did.
And the Wrens? They understand completely.
The Wrens - Rest Your Head
The Wrens - Indie 500
The Wrens - She Sends Kisses
The Wrens - Hopeless
The Wrens - Ex-Girl Collection
The Wrens - Everyone Chooses Sides
The Wrens official web site. Buy The Meadowlands from Absolutely Kosher Records, iTunes Music Store, and Amazon.
Posted by Queen of the Front Row at 03.14.05 at 11:01 AM
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