Review: Buzzcocks - The Way
By Marc Blanc, Contributor
[1-2-3-4 GO!; 2014]
Rating: 3/10
Key Tracks: “In the Back,” “Chasing Rainbows/Modern Times”
First-generation British punk band Buzzcocks released this year’s second album titled The Way, the first belonging to R&B queen Macy Gray. Both records were released by smaller labels than the artists may have hoped--in fact, Buzzcocks ended up financing their Way not through a label at all, but through the kickstarter PledgeMusic. Common ground, however, diverges there.
The 60-year-old punks use the album title to reminisce on “the way it was,” while Gray talks about “the way” to be happy and successful in the future. Accordingly, one album is invigorated with fresh ideas, and the other has arthritis.
Virtually nothing on Buzzcocks’ first LP in six years hydrates. The three-chord progressions glutting every track are the amorphous sort that were played out in the early ‘80s, after the original punk explosion that brought recognition to this band had evolved into something else entirely. Whatever, it’s no-nonsense punk rock; instruments are not there to impress. Unfortunately, just about everything else sounds just as stale as the instrumentation.
Pete Shelley takes no chances at giving himself a sore throat by testing his evidently small range or putting much emotion into his vocal work whatsoever. Just about any song proves this, but perhaps the most offensive is the opener, “Keep On Believing,” if only because it commences one of the most underwhelming returns of a legendary punk band in recent memory.
In the ‘70s (and to some extent the ‘80s), Buzzcocks were arguably the punkest of all well-known punk bands, because they did nothing that was expected by the genre conventions of the era. Instrumentally, they teetered on new wave, as songs like “Ever Fallen In Love” sound more progressive than the spitting ferocity that was Sex Pistols and the sugar-coated simplicity that was Ramones. Instead of anarchy and punk rock high schools, Buzzcocks dared to sing love songs over pieces considered by some to be too “weird” for punk. However, exhaustion instead of innovation prevails on The Way, with the band settling for cliches in instrument and language.
With touching poetry like, “I must confess / My life is in a mess / And when things start / To really fall apart / Can’t piece them back again,” on “Out of the Blue” (the title itself is a cliché), Buzzcocks are performing wonders by charging 10 dollars for content that could be played by a number of dad-punk bands in any Akron bar.
The group does emerge from 1977 on “Virtually Real,” a satisfying commentary on the new generation’s digital life. To coin a term, most of this record is frozen in a stage of neanderthal punk: an unintuitive, generic brand of punk rock that falls short of everything punk as a culture and a genre quests to do.
Buzzcocks are renowned for a reason, though, and they show why on “In the Back,” which jumps a ton of of missing links from neanderthal punk to post-punk, almost to Mission of Burma’s level. Sure to satiate the youngsters, the guitar riff sounds as much like a Joyce Manor intro as it does snow flurries.
“Chasing Rainbows/Modern Times” is the most fun, but that’s because it’s about one chord away from being “Blitzkrieg Bop.” If an album peaks when it sounds like it came from a different band, its artistic merit should be seriously evaluated.
As painful as it is to write, the only thing that screams “we need a quick buck” louder than how The Way was funded, is how it sounds.
