When I
saw this album come up in my search results, I have to admit that I was
surprised by it. It seems like just a
few short months ago that I was rocking out to “Songs from the Drain” for the
first time. (It was back in May, which
is about a five month gap, but still, this year seems to be flying by for
me) Once I got over the fact that, yes,
Millenials had put out yet another album in this, the year of music, I was
ready to crank it as loud as I could.
The
thing about having a follow up to what I think was just such a great album, as
well as being in the general vein of
what I like to call grunge, is the question of how do you follow up to it? Many of the problems with bands that were
labeled as grunge is that they didn’t have any longevity because they peaked at
one album.
I’m not
saying this outright, because I don’t agree with the assessment, but many
people would feel as if perhaps Nirvana peaked at “Nevermind” (Personally, I like “In
Utero” best and think their best songs only would follow that), Pearl Jam
at “Ten” (I’m a big fan of “Backspacer”) and so on in that
manner.
What
most people who didn’t live through grunge don’t realize is that there are a
crop of bands out there known for either one song or one album and then they
kind of get written off. Some of them
deservedly so, sure, (I won’t name names), but some of them without any real
sense of fairness to the band.
Local
H, for example, might forever be known for their 1996 album “As Good As Dead”
(I pulled that off the top of my head, so I hope ’96 is the right year), yet
they’ve put out a number of great albums since then.
So the
problem with this second album, which really every band faces, is that you run
the risk of either not having this album live up to the expectations set by the
first, you have it be too far a departure from the sound that made you love the
band before or you can just view it as an extension of the previous album.
I say
extension, but I really mean more along the lines of a continuation if you’d
rather. Granted, their first album is six songs and
this is nine, so you know, you could put them together for a fifteen track epic
and not really hesitate to listen to them all the way through.
From
Hum to Local H to “Nevermind” era Nirvana, Millenials has managed to create a
most excellent album for the second time this year and I don’t know how many
bands (if any) can pull that off. If
you haven’t taken my advice yet and listened to Millenials, now seems to be the
best time to take advantage of these songs on Band Camp.
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