Poster
Children
- No More Songs About Sleep and Fire
Photo:Jason Bentley
In the
tradition of Talking Heads' "More Songs About
Buildings and Food" and The Undertones' "More Songs
About Chocolate And Girls " we're excited to present "No
More Songs About Sleep and Fire," the new full-length
album from veteran Champaign rock outfit Poster Children! This
is their 9th (or more accurately their 8 1/2th) album in 16
years! The album morphs hyperkinetic new wave pop with angular
agit-rock intricacies highlighted by the vibrant guitar interplay
between guitarists Rick + Jim and dual singing of Rick + Rose
and anchored by Rose's propulsive bass playing and the sturdy
beat of new drummer Matt. Twelve new songs recorded in the
band's very own Bit Riot! studios in Champaign, This disc is
enhanced for both Mac and PC users and includes an album length
commentary track by Rick + Rose (just like you'd find on your
favorite DVD - where topics like flag burning, Kathmandu, and
Fred Schneider collide!) and a video for the single "Western
Springs." It even includes a song about Jane, a former
Parasol intern and Rose's Tae Kwon Do sister! Previous releases
on Limited Potential, Frontier, Twin-Tone, Creation, Sub Pop,
Sire-Reprise, spinART, and 12-Inch Records (among others) plus
a decade and a half of touring, touring, TOURING have earned
the band legions of fans, all over the country.
Photo: Victor Cortez
In "Flag" the
Poster Children issue a call to the world - "Get off the
fence/ Get off your ass/ It's time to make a stand before there's
nothing left" - and they lead by example. No More Songs
About Sleep and Fire is the Champaign juggernaut's umpteenth
album (okay, 9th) over the last decade and a half and it is both
a sarcastic wink at rock's past (among others the Talking Heads
had More Songs About Buildings and Food in 1978 and The Dillenger
Four had More Songs About Girlfriends and Bubble in 1997) and
an introduction to their future with new drummer Matt. Thankfully
for longtime fans, judging by No More Songs About Sleep and Fire
the future looks just as promising as the past.
One of
the best moments on the album (and in Poster Children's storied
career, for my dollar) is the Pixies-esque "The
Floor" with it's acoustic intro, distorted chorus, vocal
harmonizing (can't you just taste "Where Is My Mind?"),
squawking guitars, and gravelly anthemic vocals. The track
distills everything that's great about this album- and the
band as a whole- down to a hearty saccharine crunch.
In general
No More Songs About Sleep and Fire is one powerful, libertine
album from start to finish. It is easy to get lost
in the album by putting it on repeat or shuffle, butting the
helter-skelter "Different & Special Things" up
against the rich bass rumblings of the first single "Western
Springs" one round and slicing the brooding fuzz-funk
of "Midnite Son" with the frenetic guitars of "The
Leader" the next.
Always
perched on the cutting edge of user-interface technology,
The Poster Children have gone all out as per usual (anyone
who didn't catch their DVD Zero Stars is missing out) and rigged
plenty of interactivity into the CD version of the record.
There is an album length commentary track by guitarist and
bassist (and new parents!) Rick and Rose (just like you'd find
on your favorite DVD) and a video for the single "Western
Springs." The video is great, the songs are great, the
unconventional packaging is great and the Poster Children are
great. There's nothing quite as satisfying as seeing your favorite
bands from ten years ago step up to the plate and hit so many
consecutive home runs. Here's [raising glass] to another ten
years of the Poster Children.
Eric J Herboth, Lost At Sea
“Poster
Children have been treading the boards of the new wave revival
boards for a long time. The Rapture were still in knee pants
when the Illinois group was starting out in 1987. Their angular,
energetic sound has remained pretty constant throughout, and
their eighth album, No More Songs About Sleep and Fire, is one
of their best. Rick Valentin’s vocals are full of fire,
slightly detached fire if that is possible but fire just the
same. The sound of the album is stripped down and punchy, mostly
made up of dueling overdriven and angular guitars, Rose Marshack’s
sturdy bass (and sweet backing vocals), and powerful drums. "Flag," with
its jumpy beats and political sentiments, "Jane," a
melodic ode to a kung fu fighting friend of the band, the rollicking "Now
It's Gone," and the strange and epic "The Leader" are
some of the standout tracks on the album. Basically if you are
a fan of Poster Children you won't be let down. If you are a
fan of the new new wave revival, you really should check these
guys out. They have smarts and energy to burn as well as a bunch
of songs that are right up there with anything Interpol, the
Rapture, or Hot Hot Heat have done." - All Music Guide
It's
been easy to take Poster Children for granted for some time now;
the group formed down in Champaign way back in 1987, straddled
the transition from indie heroes to major-label comers during
the alternative explosion, then returned to the ranks of the
indies once more post-Lollapalooza. Always a gripping live act,
their success has been more mixed on album.
But with its nod to Talking Heads' classic "More Songs About
Buildings and Food" in the title, "No More Songs About
Sleep and Fire" finds the quartet not only sounding more
inspired than ever, but more relevant, neatly outdoing the likes
of newer bands such as Hot Hot Heat, the Rapture and Interpol
who've been hailed as part of the "New Wave of New Wave."
The arty, fractured minimalism of post-punk art-rock (the "old
New Wave"?) lives on in short, brutally efficient but instantly
infectious tracks such as "Jane" and "Fly";
the 12 tracks here whiz by in just over 37 minutes, conveying
a frantic energy that will tempt you to start pogoing around
your living room, as if you were listening to the best of the
vintage Heads, Gang of Four, Wire or Richard Hell and the Voidoids.
- Jim DeRogatis, Chicago Sun-Times
From
the Chicago Tribune:
The Poster Children making headlines - Greg Kot, Tribune rock
critic
Amazing what a little time off will do for a band. The Poster
Children spent their first 13 years in a frenzy of recording
and touring: seven albums, an EP, two side-project albums as
Salaryman, and hundreds of shows annually in clubs big and small.
Then came three years of relative silence, during which the quartet
fashioned a career retrospective DVD and co-founders Rick Valentin
and Rose Marshack had a son last November.
Now, back to business: "No More Songs About Sleep and Fire" (Parasol)
is that rare "late-career" album that arrives as more
than just a faint reminder of past glories, but as a ferocious,
ticked-off expression of energy and commitment renewed. At the
album's midpoint a song arrives that is as incisive and timely
a piece of political commentary as we're likely to hear this
election season: "The Leader." Valentin alternates
between the voice of a mesmerized follower ("The leader
represents the 1 percent who pay his rent.") and a righteously
indignant outcast ("He lieeeeeees!").
It's a classic Poster Children track, jerking like a bumper car
from one violent collision to the next. It's stoked by yet another
in a long list of Poster Children drummers (seven, for those
keeping count), Matt Friscia, who hammers away with demonic intensity.
The band's not-so-secret weapons through the years have always
been their drummers, who inevitably take full advantage of the
space left in the crash-and-burn arrangements by Marshack, Valentin
and his guitar-playing brother Jim.
"Despite the high turnover rate, our band is drummer-friendly," Rick
Valentin says with a laugh.
"Matt tried out for the band the last time we had an opening
[in 1993] and we wouldn't allow him in because he was still in
high school," Marshack says. "This time he e-mailed
us and said, `This time, I am your drummer,' and he was!"
The same could be said for the Poster Children, who got into
music for all the right reasons when they began playing gigs
in 1987 while Valentin and Marshack were attending the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and have kept their priorities
clear ever since.
"All the decisions we made along the way were to preserve
the pleasure of being in the band," Valentin says. "I'd
seen too many people just stop playing music because the process
of being in a band made them so jaded. To me, that's tragic."
For years, the band slept on the floors and couches of fans and
toured in a van; even when they were signed to Reprise Records
in the wake of the Nirvana-inspired alternative rock frenzy,
the Poster Children refused to take tour support from their label
so as not to sink into debt. Instead, the band poured its tour
revenue into buying equipment; Marshack and Valentin now have
a recording studio in the basement of their home in Champaign.
"I'd seen guys in bands put their advances into new cars,
and later they'd be serving me at a restaurant in town," Valentin
says.
In addition, the two computer programmers--U. of I. employs both
to write software--have maintained a Web site that has kept them
in touch with fans even when the band wasn't touring the last
couple of years. The site (www.posterchildren.com) includes tour
diaries, a year-by-year history of the band and Valentin and
Marshack's entertaining weekly talk show, Radio Zero. "No
More Songs About Sleep and Fire" is packed with more extras:
a track-by-track commentary from the band, and the video for
the single "Western Springs." It's the kind of above-and-beyond
packaging and attention to detail that has enabled the Poster
Children to maintain a loyal fan base for more than a decade.
That, and the band's music, which has never sounded better than
on "More Songs," a potent mix of Valentin's Everyman
vocals, rampaging rhythms and dollops of new wave keyboards.
The band no longer exclusively supports itself by touring and
recording; Valentin and Marshack's university jobs now pay the
bills. But their enthusiasm for music remains acute.
"We never strayed from the simple fact that it's fun to
hear our instruments played with other people's instruments," Marshack
says. "It's fun to be on a stage, and it's even more fun
when there are a couple of people in front of you.
"That was our only goal at the beginning--to finally get
to the point where we could play a show out of town," Valentin
says. "After that, we've been happy to go along for the
ride."
from
the Chicago Reader:
I don’t know what’s gotten into these downstate veterans,
but it’s a pity they can’t bottle it: their eighth
album, No More Songs About Sleep and Fire (Hidden Agenda), is
the best thing they’ve ever done. It’s as if all
the phases they’ve gone through, all the flirtations with
cutesiness and spaciness and tech for tech’s sake, have
jelled into the organic, holistic rush that eluded them for so
long. Alternating harmony-rich trance-outs (“The Floor,” “Shy”)
with bursts of righteous rage (“Flag,” “The
Leader”), they’re revved up like a cheerful midwestern
Wire—like they want to sell you widgets, register you to
vote, and hump your leg all at once.
from
Splendid E-zine:
The wonderful thing about No More Songs About Sleep and Fire,
and the Poster Children's music in general, is that you can't
put it on one of those tidy little metaphorical shelves that
marketing people love to build. There's no handy three-word description,
no hyphen-heavy hybrid to describe their sound; "power-pop" is
woefully inadequate, "punk" is one-dimensional, "post-punk" lacks
historical perspective. Keep trying if you'd like -- you're going
to fail. The Poster Children make Poster Children records, and
a Poster Children record can be many things.
For instance, No More Songs About Sleep and Fire is exuberant. "Hollywood
Pt. II" rattles forward on Rose Marshack's juggernaut bassline
and a thicket of chiming, echoing, jutting guitars, Rick Valentin's
near-spoken vocals on the verses sharply offset by the sing-song
chorus he shares with Marshack. "Flag", on the other
hand, tips its hat to the "established", highly energized
PC sound: Rick's zig-zaggedy guitar line bounces around in the
foreground, Marshack's bass rumbles relentlessly behind it, Jim
Valentin anchors his brother's fretboard acrobatics with a chugging
guitar rhythm, and new drummer Matt Friscia does his damndest
to outpace his bandmates. Rabble-rousing lyrics complete the
puzzle -- it's quintessential Poster Children, but it's also
No More Songs' only real concession to the past.
No More Songs About Sleep and Fire is also highly personal. Jagged,
post-punky opener "Jane" might describe any twenty-first-century
woman, but it's actually a highly specific song about one of
Marshack's friends (no prizes for guessing her name). With lyrics
like "She's a budding kung fu master / she's a tae kwan
do soul sister / yeah, she could kick your ass (but she doesn't
wanna!)", it's also one of the rare rock songs that openly
praises intelligence and extols the boundless options open to
anyone who's young, smart and motivated. Why aren't there more
songs like it? On a more convoluted note, fuzzed-out breakneck
anthem "Different and Special Things" stems from an
experience Rick and Rose had while traveling in Tibet -- but
you don't need to know the story to enjoy the song.
No More Songs About Sleep and Fire is also referential -- but
not excessively so. For every overt homage -- and they don't
come much more overt than "The Floor"'s unmistakable
Pixies tribute -- there's a sidelong, conceptual acknowledgement.
First single "Western Springs", for example, stems
from Rick listening to a lot of Bobby Bare Jr. and wanting to
anchor a song to a particular place, as Bare so often does. Rick
and Jim grew up in the airtight Chicago suburb of Western Springs
(a mere fifteen minutes from Splendid HQ), and Rick claims that
the town fits the song's meter better than his and Marshack's
longtime home, über-college-town Champaign-Urbana, does.
Trust us, though: Western Springs, the town, is a hell of a lot
more boring and whitebread than Champaign-Urbana will ever be.
There's a lot of great stuff going on in "Western Springs",
the song -- a rumbling, resonant bass rhythm, elastic guitars
and clattering drum-stops -- but Rick and Rose's even monotone
perfectly conveys the stultifying dullness of a town "where
the streets are safe and the air is clean." If you scour
the album for other references, you'll find plenty -- from the
title's homage to David Byrne et al, to a pervasively steely
moral resolve that (literally) screams "We played a few
shows with Fugazi and were forever changed by the experience."
No More Songs About Sleep and Fire is also confrontational. While "Sugarfriend"'s
brash, angular dismissal of a parasitic fair-weather acquaintance
is a classic punk dis rooted as much in humor as grievance, "The
Leader"'s quasi-fascist sloganeering points its finger at
the Bush administration. As political statements go, it's pretty
vague stuff, but the song's vibrant combination of swaggering
garage-rock riffs and sludgy psychedelic rock-squalls make it
more compelling than politics.
No More Songs About Sleep and Fire is also ground-breaking. In
addition to its twelve songs and inevitable video (for "Western
Springs"), it steals a page from the DVD playbook by including
an album-length commentary track. Like most commentary tracks,
it's a behind-the-scenes kind of thing, featuring Rick and Rose
talking about making the album as said album plays in the background.
Unlike most DVD commentary tracks, it's designed to be listened
to on its own. (If you have a fast computer and a good sound
card, it's possible to listen to both the commentary and the
album simultaneously, but you'll drive yourself nuts trying to
get the levels right and the playback synched. Trust me.) If
you enjoy Rick and Rose's online talk show, Radio Zero (and you
really should check it out), you'll enjoy the commentary -- it's
basically a Radio Zero episode without any discussion of George
W. Bush, gestational diabetes or Rick's CS 373 class. If only
it was broken up into tracks, like the record itself, I could've
used it to fact-check this review.
In conclusion, No More Songs About Sleep and Fire is many things;
we've barely scratched the surface. We're content to view it
as a vibrant, engrossing album by a seasoned band whose best
years are still ahead of them -- or as smart, funny, incisive
music for intelligent, slightly geeky outsiders who aren't uptight
about being intelligent, slightly geeky outsiders. It's also
an album to savor: until Rick and Rose's newest side project,
Gram Marshack Valentin (who'll be two months and two days old
when this review runs), is ready to go on tour, they aren't likely
to venture too far from home. Let's hope he's a quick study.
from
Mundane Sounds:
For a rock band as long-lived and prolific as the Poster Children
(nine releases in sixteen years, as well as a couple of dance
records under the pseudonym Salaryman), you’d think that
I’d have heard their music more than twice before listening
to this record. My first exposure to them was in 1995, when I
saw their video for “Junior Citizen” on the much-missed
MTV program 120 Minutes. The band released an album of the same
name that year, and although few of its songs were as bad as
the mediocre “cyber-punk” of its title track, it
still wasn’t essential. My second exposure to the Poster
Children came in 2002 when they opened for the Breeders in Austin.
They didn’t play any songs from Junior Citizen, which wasn’t
a surprise considering how old the record is. What surprised
me was that the newer numbers they played were faster, louder,
and leaner than anything on that record was. It’s definitely
a rare thing for rock bands to, instead of mellow out, get more
abrasive as they age. Watching bassist/singer Rose jump around
with a mile-wide grin on her face like a sugar-fueled tomboy
should be a breath of fresh air to anyone who’s seen one
too many performers act like they don’t want to be on stage.
A diehard fan of the band spastically danced in front of the
stage in the same manner that I do at Guided by Voices shows.
Although I liked the Poster Children’s set, I still didn’t
think they were worthy of my devotion yet. WhenNo More Songs
About Sleep and Fire arrived in my mailbox, it kicked me in the
behind as soon as I put it in the CD player.
The first thing I noticed was the airtight instrumental interplay.
None of these songs have more than four chords, but they never
sound simplistic. This is because every member of the band knows
how to use space and noise to their best advantage. Most of the
songs sound as if they’re built from the rhythm section
upwards. Even when the rhythms get complex, Rose and new drummer
Matt stay in the kind of sync that most bands would need years
to develop. Whether strumming power chords, playing nimble single-note
riffs, or not playing at all, guitarists Rick and Jim do nothing
more or less than what is truly best for the song. It’s
almost as if the Poster Children have taken notes from the entire
history of post-punk, from Wire and Gang of Four to Talking Heads
and the Pixies, and constructed their own lesson plan. “The
Floor,” arguably the album’s catchiest song, could
have easily fit on the latter's Trompe Le Monde.
The lyrics are just as strong as the music. The opening track, “Jane,” extols
the virtue of a teenage friend that Rose practices martial arts
with. The smart, independent, and self-sufficient girl described
in its lyrics could provoke budding young feminists to adopt
the song as an them of their own, and I hope it does! Under a
backdrop of hyper-kinetic disco-punk, “Flag” concisely
chastises people who confuse political disagreement with treason;
the flag “belongs to me as much as it belongs to you.” “The
Leader” could be viewed as an attack on mainstream America’s
unquestioning support of President Bush, but the lyrics keep
things general enough for the song to apply to all of human history,
ensuring that the song will remain timeless. In “Now It’s
Gone,” Rick observes how tragedy only manages to bring
people together for a short time before they divide themselves
once again, with no lessons learnt. Again, though, the lyrics
are general enough to apply to situations other than pre- and
post-9/11 America. Not all of the songs on this record are overtly
political: other subjects tackled include fair-weather friends,
shyness, alcoholism, movies, and the quietude of the suburbs.
No matter what, though, the lyrics avoid both vagueness and sanctimony
in a manner similar to the Intima’s Peril and Panic, the
best political agit-punk record of LAST year.
The Poster Children are also to be commended for their multimedia
savvy. The CD version of No More Songs About Sleep and Fire come
with an album-length commentary track from Rick and Rose, as
well as a video for album highlight “Western Springs.” The
commentary track is particularly enlightening, as it reveals
many things that I already suspected from listening to the music. “I’m
a riff guy,” Rick admits at one point, and I thought to
myself, “No s**t, Sherlock.” Rick and Rose tell you
which songs on the record were built off of bass or drum parts
(almost all of them), and make self-deprecating jokes about using
too few chords in their songs. Rick discusses his frustration
being constantly compared to the B-52s’ Fred Schneider
(which is why I hate to admit that I think he sounds like him
too). Rose even admits to sequencing Poster Children records
according to which songs she likes the most, which might have
something to do with why the first five songs RULE and the last
three songs are just okay. Unlike many bands, The Poster Children
don’t use multimedia to compensate for wack music. They
use it as a way to enhance music that holds up well enough on
its own, as well as a way to extend a hand of fellowship to their
fans. Rick and Rose even encourage listeners to e-mail them at
the track’s end. I don’t know about you, but that
just warms my heart.
Put simply, No More Songs About Sleep and Fire is a powerhouse
of a record that definitely taught me a lesson. In their second
decade of existence, at a point in which most other bands get
either complacent or just plain BAD, the Poster Children are
just getting started. Rick and Rose recently had a child together,
so I’m pretty sure the band won’t hit the road for
a while. If and when they do, though, the spastic diehard in
Austin will definitely have a dancing partner.
from
Neumu:
For Poster Children, it's been a long road — and over 12
years — from "Where We Live" to "Western
Springs." The former is one of the band's most powerful
songs, from its excellent 1991 album, the Steve Albini-recorded
Daisy Chain Reaction. "Western Springs," from the band's
forthcoming album, No More Songs About Sleep and Fire, takes
its title from the Chicago suburb where band members/brothers
Rick and Jim Valentin grew up. In between, Poster Children have
recorded a heap of albums (including several on Warner subsidiary
Sire Records), toured the world, employed seven different drummers,
survived the mid-1990s alterna-craze, and lived to tell about
it.
For the uninitiated, Poster Children — singer/guitarist
Rick Valentin and his wife, bassist/singer Rose Marshack, guitarist
Jim Valentin and drummer Matt Friscia — are the DIY band
for the digital age. Short of booking their tours, the band members,
who are based in Chicago and Champaign, Illinois, have long done
it all themselves: self-producing many of their records; designing
the cover art; programming elaborate multimedia content on their
CDs; designing and maintaining an expansive Web site (Rose's
tour diaries, the band's videos, and Rick and Rose's weekly "Radio
Zero" radio show are highlights); filming and digitizing
their own DVD; and driving their inconspicuous white van during
a number of cross-country tours.
After releasing several albums on independent labels, in 1992
the band signed to Sire, for which they recorded three albums
and an EP. While their own major-label experience wasn't as negative
as that of the aforementioned Albini, Rick offered some words
of caution during a recent email interview: "I think majors
can be a very risky proposition," he wrote. "I've known
too many bands that have been crushed by the transition from
indie to major. We were lucky enough to be on a major that was
interested in developing their artists over time rather than
trying to find the one-hit wonder for this month. Unfortunately
I don't think that attitude exists in the major-label world anywhere
these days."
Though traditionally quite prolific, having released eight albums
and a six-song EP from 1988-2000, plus two full albums by side
project Salaryman, the band has been somewhat quiet of late.
Accounting for the Poster Children's doings during this time,
Rick explained, "We did a DVD, but that only counts for
about a year. [Drummer] Howie left the band so we had to break
in the new guy, Matt. Then we had to write some songs and on
top of that, Rose and I both went back to school (yes, just like
Rodney Dangerfield), which also ate into our rock time."
Rehearsals and recording also present a small logistical challenge,
as Jim and Matt both live in Chicago while Rick and Rose reside
several hours south in Champaign.
But Poster Children's period of quiet is coming to an end, with
No More Songs About Sleep and Fire slated for release on January
27, 2004. The aggressive album includes a unique feature in the
form of an album-length commentary track that plays as a CD-ROM
extra, as well as the video for "Western Springs."
Touring behind the album, however, may not happen due to the
band's other new "release": Gram Marshack Valentin,
born to Rick and Rose last month. "Although people have
told me that they've gone on tour with a baby with no trouble,
we're going to have to see if that's possible for us," Rick
wrote.
Though the song's title suggests otherwise, Rick maintains that
the safe suburban home described in "Western Springs" has
little to do with the town he grew up in. "I was listening
to a lot of Bobby Bare, and he always sings about towns and cities,
like 'Abilene,' 'The Streets of Baltimore,' 'That's How I Got
to Memphis,' and 'Detroit City'," Rick explained. "So
I wanted to have a lyric about a town, and Champaign-Urbana didn't
fit rhythmically into the music, so Western Springs it was. I
feel like the song is as much about [college town] Champaign
as Western Springs."
The group is experiencing some fallout from its time with Sire;
several of their albums are currently out of print. "This
is one of the best reasons not to sign to a major; they own your
records forever and if they don't feel like keeping them in print,
they won't," he wrote. "And they won't give them back,
just in case the no-name band of 2003 is the Velvet Underground
of 2033. However, we've had some discussions with our former
label to press up some copies ourselves."
As for the future, Rick is currently anxious to mix the third
Salaryman album while continuing on with Poster Children. "I
feel like music is always going to be a part of my life, and
since three-quarters of the band is related, it's not like we're
going to break up," he said. "The band may change,
but I don't think we'll ever go away completely. I guess since
we've been around for 16 years, we're already a long-term proposition."
from
Neumu:
Seeing that it features an album-length commentary by two of
its members, Poster Children's No More Songs About Sleep and
Fire — their first album since 2000's DDD, and ninth overall — poses
an interesting dilemma: How does one discuss an album that virtually
reviews itself? In my case, I've sworn off on listening to the
commentary until I've submitted this review. Which poses a small
challenge, because music this smart and energetic makes you want
to do just about anything but sit at the computer.
But write away I do as the band's powerful punk-tinged rock washes
over me, from urgent opener "Jane" right through to
the penultimate track. Poster Children's strengths are on display
throughout: Rick Valentin and wife Rose Marshack's (oft-processed)
Midwestern vocals; Rick and brother Jim Valentin's muscular guitars,
which conjure up everything from hives of bees to runaway trains;
Marshack's bulldozer bass rumble; and new guy Matt Friscia, the
latest in the band's long line of top-notch drummers (Poster
Children drumming alumni play in acts as diverse as Tortoise
and Blue Man Group).
On a musical level these new songs are clearly identifiable as
the Poster Children's work, but the band covers a broad array
of lyrical turf on No More Songs About Sleep and Fire. Political
themes recur throughout, notably on the Orwell-/Fox News-/Bush-inspired "The
Leader." "The leader speaks from the heart, not the
mind/ The leader tells us what we want to hear/ The leader knows
what's best for the rest of us/ Citizens, you must trust the
leader," Rick intones in sinister fashion through echoing,
multi-tracked vocals, answering back with a chanted "We
know/ he lies/ we love/ the lies/ we need/ the lies" on
the chorus. All the while, the band makes a calamitous noise
behind him.
Powered by Marshack's lead bass line, "Flag" cautions
against symbolism, empty-headed rhetoric and ad hominem attacks,
kicking off with "We don't agree/ That's fine with me/ But
you seem to think that that means/ I'm the enemy," a situation
all too common in our times. Most powerfully, "Now It's
Gone" encapsulates the sense that 9/11 represented an opportunity — since
blown apart like/by so many cluster bombs — for the world
to reflect a bit and work together toward peace rather than starting
endless wars on abstractions like "terror." Songs about
politics can easily verge into empty sloganeering (e.g., Billy
Bragg) or drown in quickly dated specifics (e.g., Dead Kennedys
or New Model Army), but Poster Children straddle the line by
sticking to generalities where too many of their predecessors
have strayed. (For the record, I'm still a fan of the three acts
I've just dissed, but believe that they all tended to bludgeon
where some finesse would have served them better.)
A number of lighter songs offset these serious-minded tracks. "The
Bottle" offers good, clean fun pop while feting Chicago's
Empty Bottle club, host to many a Poster Children show over the
years. "Western Springs" finds Rick employing a country-ish
drawl to describe a (too) peaceful Midwestern town, with Jim's
droning, synth-style guitar solo a highlight. The stuttering "Sugarfriend" rails
against fair-weather friends, while "Jane" goes to
the other side of the coin in celebrating Marshack's titular
straight-edge kung fu sister. "Hollywood Pt II" has
it both ways, seeming to simultaneously praise and question escapist
entertainment. Closing track "Midnite Son" offers a
quiet, unsettling respite from the 11 previous tracks, meandering
about a bit and ending the album on somewhat of a down note.
With No More Songs About Sleep and Fire, the Poster Children
offer a clarion call to kick off this (American) election year
while successfully steering clear of preachy polemics. At least,
that's what I make of it. Now, I'm off to insert the disc into
my CD-ROM drive to hear what the band has to say about these
rollicking numbers.
"The
Poster Children have been perhaps the most reliable college band
of the '90s. They haven't made a pandering sellout record. They
haven't threatened breakup. They haven't moved away from the
college town (Champaign, Illinois) where they started. And they
haven't made a bad album, ever." - PITCHFORK.COM
“Self-reliant to the core, the Poster Children have certainly
done it-apologies to Old Blue Eyes and Sid Vicious-their way.
With an on-going commitment to low-budget van tours and all-ages
shows-and a dogged desire to maintain control of everything from
album artwork to advertising-the band seems a mighty throwback
to the alt-rock wonder years of the mid-80's when Amerindie kings
the Minutemen and Husker Du ruled the roost.” - WOXY.COM
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