The Dismemberment Plan
The Dismemberment Plan Is Terrified
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NATN Recommended
The Dismemberment Plan
The Dismemberment Plan Is Terrified
Desoto, 1997
RiYL: Braniac, XTC, Fugazi, Shudder To Think, Jawbox, Public Enemy |
I won't bore with you with stories of how "The Ice Of Boston" reminds me of my girlfriend, or how my jaw dropped when I saw lead singer Travis Morrison going apeshit while playing the trombone at a dank basement show a few days after Is Terrified was released. The point is this: Is Terrified is a milestone of late '90s indie rock -- an album that is probably destined to remain critically underappreciated despite its mind-blowing erasure of all boundaries between music genres.
The Washington D.C. hardcore/post-punk scene that spawned the Plan had already gotten pretty arty by 1997, and there certainly was no shortage of bands that played off the scene's rampant inside jokes and anti-mainstream stance. Somehow though, the Plan rose above it all, balancing ferocious and dissonant hardcore riffing alongside the kind of melodic, smart pop purveyed by bands like XTC.
The band's real secret weapon is Morrison, who injects each song with the kind of lyrical wit and insight rarely found in indie rock. He rattles off don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-em zingers at will, reminding one and all that you can scream your lungs out and still nail your target to the wall.
Morrison does a lot of calling out on Is Terrified, but more often than not, his barbs are likely to elicit a firm "right on." Album opener "Tonight We Mean It" sets the tone, as the singer methodically dissects hipster party-goers decked out in "head-to-toe rayon." He's "going to a place that never existed," but when he skips out on the party, he finds himself driving around aimlessly, looking "for something weird." It's a reminder of how easy it is to look for something better without having a damn clue what that might be.
On "Academy Award," Morrison deflates the subject's bulging ego under the guise of award-show metaphors, while using his sarcasm as way of understanding a friend's suicide on "It's So You." He takes aim again at jaded and emotionless scenesters on "Doing The Standing Still," which imagines said non-reaction as a "brand new step that everybody ISN'T moving to." Surveying the "6 or 7 kids" watching the band play at a strip mall in North Dakota, he observes with pure bewilderment that "I thought they were bored out of their minds / but it turns out they were having a ball."
However, Morrison knows when to turn his critical inklings inward. He spends just as much time pointing out his own misgivings as he does with others, especially on the hilarious "The Ice Of Boston." Our poor boy is stuck alone in Boston on New Year's Eve, and spends the evening moping, getting hammered and pouring champagne on his naked self. Between fending off calls from his mom and pondering the deep lyrical meaning of a Gladys Knight song, he manages to perfectly capture the myriad uncertainties common to us twenty-somethings.
Musically, Is Terrified runs the gamut from the grating, hyper-active grind of DC-scene forefathers like Fugazi, Jawbox and Shudder To Think on "Bra" and "One Too Many Blows To The Head," to solemn odes to regret like 13-minute closer "Respect Is Due." There are some positively incredible individual passages throughout, the kinds that one wishes would just go on for eternity -- the sublime chorus and subsequent instrumental breakdown in "This Is The Life" is a prime example.
However, it's "Respect Is Due" that provides a glimpse into the future of the Dismemberment Plan's sound. Although a similarly affecting slow song closed the band's debut album, "Respect Is Due" makes it clear that Morrison knows he can't scream and shout at his listeners forever. And the hint of even greater things to come makes Is Terrified all the sweeter.
JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as news/reviews editor for Billboard.com in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"