Strokes haters need not apply

Howler

America Give Up

Rough Trade, 2012

I really want to like America Give Up, the debut LP from Minneapolis’ Howler. Really, I do. The young quintet’s full-length is chock full of super-catchy garage rock and post-punk jams, impressively tight guitar licks, and a pleasant lo-fi distortion that conjures some of Guided By Voices’ more accessible numbers, or perhaps a faster-paced Pavement. The kind of stuff that demands to be played loud and often. Not surprisingly, the band’s 2011 EP, This One’s Different, was universally lauded, and NME went as far as to name Howler the third-best new band of that year. So what’s the problem?

NPR, in a feature on the band, noted several other groups that sounded like Howler, the first being labelmates The Strokes. The comparison couldn’t be more apt. The more I replayed America Give Up, the more it felt like I was listening to an early Strokes album, and not a particularly outstanding one. Most of the songs are inundated with the same hi-hat heavy, rapid and syncopated drum rhythms, predictable chord progressions, the slightly distorted and deeply intoned vocals we’ve all heard before. Tracks like “Pythagorean Fearem” and “Free Drunk” are dead ringers for Strokes demos that would have probably been relegated to B-sides in favor of something just a little more interesting. Lead singer Jordan Gatesmith (named one of the 50 Coolest People of 2011 by NME) sports a delivery that is, at its best, vaguely powerful if not a little understated. At its worst, he sounds like an even more forced faux-British mash-up of Julian Casablancas and Brandon Flowers on Vicodin, doling out relatively uncreative musings on teenage neuroticism: “I hate the way I talk / And I hate the way I write / Sometimes it's better to stay in bed / Sometimes it's better to stay out all night.” I guess what I’m getting at is the reason I liked The Strokes’ early work is because it felt so fresh and authentic; these were truly gritty New York cats whose innovative music was the inevitable and unstoppable byproduct of the streets in which they traveled. By so greatly emulating a band that is certainly a major influence, these five fresh-faced Midwestern lads are only diminishing the talent they clearly possess.

But I’m not dismissing the album as a total cheap knock-off. The best songs – and they are gems – are the ones that diverge the most from the formula. The seductively slow-moving “Too Much Blood” one-ups many of The Flaming Lips’ coolest, more darkly ethereal moments in the 90s. “Back Of Your Neck” is a raucous, falsetto-friendly surf-rock-meets-power-pop good time who’d undoubtedly be the popular kid at any party. No, the LP isn’t bad, and most fans of the indie persuasion will find it enjoyable, if not moderately addictive. But I’m more intrigued by what Howler does next, if the band can find its own voice and build on the big-time potential that surfaces only periodically on America. It’s a start boys, now let’s get to work!