I don't really have the time to give albums the benefit of the doubt. I listen to so much either it clicks or it doesn't and if it doesn't I'm gone. And Fucked Up's David Comes Alive didn't come close to clicking.
I felt and feel it is a way overrated piece of superior rock and roll circa 2011. A solid B+ but no more. No The Monitor, though that might go without saying, but no The Chemistry Of The Common Life, an album it feels like it should be running circles round. And in this case I did listen a lot, getting ready for one concert earlier this year, and another concert last Monday. But damn it felt like hard work ferreting the best songs from the weight of hard rock.
OK, OK, "Queen Of Hearts" and "The Other Shoe" are pretty good. I don't deny it. What I deny is pretty good being good enough when you're attempting an update of the mid-70s Who plus post-hardcore screamathon by Pink Eye. Having said that, really I've listened to this album umpteen times and NOTHING HAS STUCK…
Till now.
"The Recursive Girl" has a great little hook: "hold the bitter taste in my mouth, i don't want to forget, don't want to spit it out" and the guitars swirl and repeat mirroring the lyric title. It is about serial monogamy, having the same type of romantic relationship with different women; the recursive girl of the title isn't one girl but one type of relation ship and the band both want it and want out of it.
It is one of the things music does best, comment in sound on what it is commenting on in lyric; rock is recursive.