Calling yourself Community College is not one of the top tips advocated by your local careers advisory panel. Try that on your search engine and you'll be directed to any number of community colleges you'll be surprised to hear, rather than to a picture of a slightly dodgy looking bearded and moustachioed trio from Boston, MA. The band concerned here.
In this case it's worth persevering though. Because SCHMOMCO, their latest record, is a wonderful exercise in Nowheresville, America depressed loser-dom. You've heard it all before, dating all the way back to the Modern Lovers Cale demos, but that doesn't mean you don't want to hear it all again. It's fun, in an entirely 'No Fun' kind of way. Ask Iggy. Then on from Jonathan and Osterberg, through Jad Fair, Replacements, Violent Femmes, Sebadoh, Beck's Mellow Gold, East River Pipe. Name your own example(s) of great American loser(s). You know what I'm getting at.
Musically, this could probably be described as Slowcore. It certainly seems to unfold its secrets at utterly funereal pace in the way that Codeine and Slint records used to back in the Stone Age. It's ever so slightly more upbeat than that. Well only slightly. There seems to be some rather dark gallows humour at play throughout. Lyrically Community College seem mostly concerned about their inability to get a girlfriend than anything else. But growing facial hair like that, what do you expect guys.
Anyway I enjoyed it thoroughly, if you're supposed to enjoy records as relentlessly bleak as this. One to listen to just before you decide to finally end it all. Or realising that this is just dark humour in slightly dubious taste, decide to watch Harold & Maud or The Big Lebowski one more time. I wouldn't say that Community College sound like penpals you want or fun guys to know but they certainly know just what they're doing here. It's a great little record.
* If you want to hear this, Spotify is your bet. There's nothing on You Tube and precious little on the Internet at all about the band, though this might interest you. The record's also on Bandcamp. Thanks to Darren once again, for directing me to this terrific record.
Glad you liked it, Bruce. Yes, it's slowcore, but not quite. The other thing that sets it apart is that it's 15 songs in around 25 minutes. I always associate slowcore with longer, more stretched out songs, but these are sharply drawn vignettes. I like it very much.
ReplyDeleteLoved it too. Very smart.
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