The Broken West's I Can't Go On, I'll Go On is a record full of all of the things that you want in a record, or at least what I want. Lots of strong vocal harmonies, lots of piano & keyboards, jangly guitars & a crunchy rhythm section to lay it all upon. The album definitely hearkens to multiple different eras, it's got the Beatles, it's got it's Elvis Costello, it's got it's Big Star & Teenage Fanclub. You can play the namecheck game all you want, you can probably find what you're looking for, and that's not a criticism. All good records, all good bands give you something that you know & like, sometimes with the influences proudly worn on their sleeve & sometimes buried in the subtext.
In an album full of upbeat or mid-tempo pop rockers, the band shifts tempo 4 songs in with "Shiftee," beginning with a simple acoustic melody & a simple narrative about the classic muse of rock & roll musicians, a pretty girl. The melody in the verse is so strong, a simple chord progression with a simple keyboard melody overlayed upon the acoustic. I love this melody, i just love it so much more slowed down a bit & in a different key, as in "Do Right Woman" by the Flying Burrito Brothers, which the verse borrows from liberally. Many of the songs & melodies on this record can evoke this same response, the "where have i heard that before" tic in the old brain. Some of the melodies you have heard before, some you haven't, but most of them are memorable, & catchy to boot, be they new to you or something borrowed and something blue (forgive the cliche).
I Can't Go On, I'll Go On butters it's bread with these melodies, these hummable uptempo hooks that abound throughout the record. Beatles-y is good, Replacements-y is good, & lord knows Big Star-y is good. That's what seperates this record from actyally being great level. Great records give you something that you've never heard before & never really thought of before, or give you something that you've heard a thousand times before & make you totally reconsider your opinion of those 3 chords or those simple phrases. The Broken West's inaugural effort will definitely have you coming back for more, the hooks are too frequent & too strong to be cast aside as derivative or misplayed, but it doesn't quite transport you to that different place.
