Japandroids: Fate & Alcohol

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a band do what Japandroids did here. After an almost 20-year run, they put out an album and promptly quit. Thanks for coming out, career over! Like didn’t even tour for the thing. Just up and walked away. So, this, Fate & Alcohol, is their swan song. This oddball Canadian duo with their anthemic tunes about drinking and… well, I don’t actually know what they’re about other than drinking. But they are definitely those fist-pumping tunes that mix a bit of heartland rock with your more typical indie and noise rock bombast. Everything feels like something between the game of tractor chicken in Footloose and a basement party in a NJ suburb. Made by a couple of 40-somethings.

Japandroids’ music has never been what one would call subtle. It really is music to listen to fireworks to. With their kind of ra-ra thing, they feel weirdly American despite being from the Great White North. And this record in particular leans into this broad idea of a larger, bigger chest-puffing swell. The music sounds like a long-running band trying to write a last album. Which kind of goes opposite the typical trend. Most last albums — like The Replacement’s All Shook Down and The Promise Ring’s Wood/Water —  go all shaggy dog on us. They downshift into singer-songwriter, or just go full alt-country. Mostly it’s a transition into the lead singer’s acoustic solo career, or just a last-gasp of a once dynamic, rockin’ band. But Japandroids take all the elements of pop that you may have unearthed in their previous records and put it all into these tunes. The music is practically pleasant in its peppiness.

All of which makes me a bit suspicious. It’s as if they told AI, “Make me ten Japandroids songs.” And this is what the robot spit out. How about a nice song about Chicago (called “Chicago”) that you could stick in an awesome montage on The Bear? Because why not? And then there’s the most confusing song on the album called “A Gaslight Anthem.” Which, of course, is the name of a band. And it’s apparently written and sung by the drummer, David Prowse, who has mysteriously written, and sings, what sounds remarkably like an Alkaline Trio tune. I though at first that my playlist had moved on, it’s so weirdly uncanny, but I guess that’s what Prowse’s chatbot shot out. This is all to say they there’s some odd artifice on this record. It sounds good. It sounds like a Japandroids album (when it doesn’t sound like an Alkaline Trio one). But almost too much so. Not to the point it’s a parody, but also kind of

As a follower of this band for a couple decades, I can’t claim to love how they’ve gone out. Not quite pandering, but almost trying too hard to smile through the tears. Or send us out on what they have to feel is a high, but is just an android-y copy of their greatest hits. That all said, it’s not a bad album when viewed in a vacuum. Like if you had a friend who wanted to go a little harder on his Springsteen collection, or thought the actual Gaslight Anthem was good, but wanted a Canadian version, this might actually hit those pleasure centers. I’ve read a few interviews from the two guys and I can’t say with 100% certainty this is their last album, but I suppose we’ll see. You know I’ll be there for it, but I might be a little more demanding if they pull of this feint.