Title: Rented World
Format Reviewed: Limited Edition 12" Vinyl & MP3
Format Released: 22nd April 2014
Reviewed By: Dan Stoten
I've had Rented World on my iPod and in my car now for the past week but I am still finding it hard to summarise the record in a concise and readable way. The sentence which just keeps flashing back into my head is: Rented World is the thinking man's Menzingers record.
There is absolutely no doubt that The Menzingers are one of the best punk bands, if not one of the best bands full stop, in the world right now. Here is an honest, gritty, and fundamentally real band, a quartet who have gained their relatively modest success through production of incredible, incredible music and hard work. The Menzingers are not a glamorous band. They're not a "cool" band. What they are, though, is a band who have passion, heart, energy, emotion, and an incredible talent for writing music.
The band's previous three full-lengths, it could be argued, have a very 'pick up and play' feel to them, in that each album has many instantly catchy tracks on it. A perfect example of this is The Obituaries on 2012's On The Impossible Past. For me, Rented World isn't as full of these catchy, instantly recognisable songs.
However, it is absolutely no worse off for that. This is a record which sees The Menzingers reach ever-new heights. Rented World wears it's heart on it's sleeve. It has a depth most modern bands can only dream of. It is gutsy, emotional and passionate.
The album opens with I Don't Wanna Be An Asshole Anymore, an instant anthem. The raw, grating vocal combined with the crashing, regular drums and guitar melodies are perfectly judged. It's a song that's impossible to sit still to, and one which it's impossible not to sing along with the gang 'wooah's throughout the chorus. It's one of the simplest and least complex songs on the album, and grabs the listener immediately.
From there the record becomes a lot more complex, deep, and less instantly accessible. Bad Things takes a typically melancholic tone, adds a gentle verse before mixing in a crashing, crushing chorus which aggressively washes over the smooth verse before settling itself into a melodic style. Vocals-wise, it's a sad, downbeat song, with the drawn out vocal notes adding to the sombre feel. It's a stunningly beautiful track.
We then move into Rodent, which opens with lonely, isolated guitar chords before smashing aggressively into a raw, heartfelt song. Again, there's melodic gang elements, aggressive, scratchy vocals, and smooth elements in the chorus. There are some really chopped changes here, too, the most obvious being two and three-quarter minutes through, where the indie-cymbals contrast nicely with the waves of crashing guitar.
You then have Where Your Heartache Exists, which follows the melancholic, sombre verse and melodic, catchy chorus pattern and My Friend Kyle, which is a more outwardly punky track, with it's pace and revs. Transient Love is next, which is one of my personal album highlights. It's a gorgeous track, this. It's haunting, lonely, emotional and beautiful. You can almost tangibly feel the emotional connection the band had with it. The lyrics and vocals are hauntingly sad (yet somehow not depressive or pessimistic), the echoing and wailing guitar jarring, and the simple, crisp regularity of the drumming a constant, clear backbone clashing with the floaty song. It's a song everyone should hear, one which jolts you hard.
Rented World continues with many more stunning tracks. The Talk sounds at times almost Offspring-like, and is a song packed full of teen angst and frustration. It's delivered that way, too, with a sneering, snotty and shouty style, which clashes nicely with the majority of the album. Hearts Unknown is an instantly recognisable Menzingers track, while In Remission is one of the singles of the year so far. A brilliantly driving, edgy track with real meaning, it's the Scranton quartet at their best.
It really is a thoughtful, deep record this one. You don't appreciate the depth here until you've heard it a number of times. It's definitely different to previous efforts from the band, and does indicate a change in direction somewhat, but not to the point that it's an absolute departure (a la Polar Bear Club).
I could go on about Rented World, but rather than reading this review, you should really be out there listening to it. A lot of people say records are 'growers', meaning they start off fairly low in your estimation and then get steadily better until you're fairly fond of them. Rented World is a grower. But it's a grower which starts off as a five-star album, and gets closer and closer to absolute genius with every listen. This is a genuinely astounding album.
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