Banner Pilot – Collapser

From their odd signing to Go Kart for last year’s debut LP Resignation Day, followed by the relatively quick jump to Fat and the subsequent release of Collasper, Banner Pilot’s rise can seem pretty meteoric, at least in punk circles. Sure, they’ve got a hell of a pedigree to draw from (featuring both ex- and current dudes from Rivethead, Off With Their Heads and more) and have undoubtedly carved out a sound that’s both immediately recognizable and wonderfully familiar. But they’ve also got some boots to fill – people were frothing at the mouth as soon as Resignation Day came out and you could hear the worried rasp of the punks wringing their hands soon after the Fat signing had been announced: would they water down and overproduce something that was obviously working just fine?

Thankfully, we can all rest easy, as that’s obviously not the case: Collapser’s definitely a solid record.

Opening “Central Standard” shows the band utilizing all the same elements that made Resignation Day work so well: vocalist Nock Johnson’s half-snotty rasp and Corey Ayd’s muted background vocals layered over some terrifically straight-forward guitar work that stays firmly entrenched in pop-punk without ever bending towards the genre’s saccharine or corny tendencies. Johnsons’ lyrics – which have absolutely floored me since I heard Rivethead’s Sound City Number Five 7” – are as wonderfully dense as ever, rife with both metaphor and an incredibly transferable sense of melancholy. I don’t know if it’s a product of all those Midwest winters or what, but if I could write lyrics like the man, I would.

There are a few minute differences between this record and the last and they generally work in the band’s favor. The biggest change – though honestly, it’s a pretty minor one – is that they seem more comfortable with the idea of a refrain, frequently repeating one particular line of the song and letting the music breathe and expand a bit. It’s a small thing, sure, but does show a bit of maturity in a record that otherwise could easily be considered  Resignation Day Redux. And that’s the one complaint that will most likely creep up after repeated listens to Collapser, though for many folks it won’t be a complaint at all: there’s the fear that they’re a band that, as my friend Jeff says, may never get past the Bad Religion Syndrome. Said syndrome pretty much afflicts bands that seem unable or unwilling to not write the same song over and over again. What Banner Pilot does, they do pretty flawlessly: it’s punk rock with stitches visible in the seams, punk that’s laced with both regret and joy in the simple things, punk with simply great guitar lines and greater lyrics. But if you’re looking for a band that’s into, say, exploring different sonic textures or challenging themselves musically with difficult ideas – labelmates Lawrence Arms (whom Banner Pilot have received more than a few comparisons to) seem to do this pretty consistently, but with these guys, you hear one song and it’s really not gonna be that much different from the other eleven. This can either be a comfort or a drag, depending on your expectations.

Personally, the minor upstep in production helps rather than hinders. There’s a fuller sound (the drums came across as a bit flat on Resignation Day) that still never comes close to being slick, the band’s still catchy as hell and while the album certainly doesn’t contain any surprises, it does contain twelve tracks that continue to add credibility to the idea that pop punk can be ferocious, anthemic and smart. They haven’t reinvented the wheel or even added anything particularly new to their own catalog, but they have crafted a damn consistent album. Absolutely worthwhile.