The Living End
The Ending Is Just The Beginning Repeating
(Dew Process)
This is a tough one.
The Living End have years and years of disciplined anthem-making under their belts, and this sixth album clearly strives for a much broader territory than the rockabilly-forged punk that made them famous. Chris Cheney’s sudden use of the chorus pedal pushes these songs into a widescreen scope, but the production by Nick DiDia (Powderfinger) is totally colourless, and the hard-bitten lyrics about oppression and rebellion are consumed by vague clichés. Aiming for a statement as grown-up and widely appealing as Green Day’s American Idiot, The Living End emerge with a buffed-clean album deprived of both heft and depth.
It need not be this way: frontman Cheney, double-bassist Scott Owen, and drummer Andy Strachan launch forth with brazen momentum on the opener ‘In the Morning’, all chugging drive, steely vocals, and lashing solos. But the lyrics about escaping soul-sucking suburbia feel tailored to angst-y teenagers desperate for a cage to rattle. And the production is stifled with radio gloss. This song and others feel all too generic, even when the band applies inspiration from other such lifers as The Who (see the ‘Baba O’Riley’ keyboards of ‘Song for the Lonely’) and Bad Religion (‘Resist’). The closing title track has lyrics co-written by The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn, and yet it’s another one-dimensional portrait of people stuck in their lives.
The lowest point is the power ballad ‘For Another Day’, which cranks up the arena rock until it sounds like bad U2. A lot of these songs are muscular, catchy, and plenty diverting in their structural quirks, but the lyrics border on greeting-card sentiment (“If we only have our hearts for another day”) or self-help (“We all have the power to change”). They become routine, as do the requisite guitar solos. At least ‘Machine Gun’ mixes things up with metal guitar and a skanking rhythm, while ‘Universe’ turns its lyrical platitudes to a pop levity that makes them more tolerable.
Maybe it’s missing the point to complain about clichés in lyrics designed for mass consumption. And there’s no doubt Cheney pours his heart into this record: his father passed away during its making. But one hopes these songs can transcend their flaws live, showing more of the sweat and ire of classic Living End. That’s what’s missing here: the boiling blood of the best anti-establishment music.
Doug Wallen
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The Living End - 'The Ending Is Just The Beginning Repeating'