Mixtapes – Even On the Worst Nights

With a half-dozen separate releases under its belt in half as many years, Mixtapes would probably dispute the definition of “full-length” usually prescribed to the class of albums under which its latest, Even on the Worst Nights, would fall. While it is the group’s lengthiest offering to date, Mixtapes has a lot to say about how the brevity and originality of an artist’s corpus forms the core of its value. Unfortunately given those self-imposed measures of success Even on the Worst Nights falls short. Between the repetitive, overwrought sentimentality and the worn commentary on “the mainstream,” Even on the Worst Nights is a crudely-assembled collage of well-trodden folk punk concepts.

Mixtapes core is two vocalists whose styles simultaneously wax Bowling for Soup and Defiance, Ohio over a sound more the former with lyricism more the latter. One can easily imagine how difficult those styles are to reconcile. Indeed, this album’s difficulties stem from a failed attempt to merge the pop approach with the folk ethos, resulting in a final product less than the sum of its parts. As a folk-punk pastiche Even on the Worst Nights hits every chord-counting cliché associated with which its style can be associated, rendered disingenuous by its forced marriage to the very style it criticizes.

“You&I” is the album’s most genuine and effective track, with a haunting refrain that communicates a real distance from the urbane dark side of the rural-Ohio act’s Manichean construction of today’s punk scene. But rarely elsewhere does this album wade beyond knee-deep. Even on the Worst Nights is so many saccharine eulogies to the good old days awkwardly crammed onto the same album as celebrations of leaving home “in the rearview mirror.” “You&I” and the unselfconscious, full-bore pop of “I’ll Give You A Hint, Yes” succeed by transcending the rest of the album’s moralizing, which never fails to ram home its point to exasperating completion.

Half the tracks are boilerplate pop-punk and the other half assails the pop-punk ethos with ofteneye-rolling verve. In aggregate this album is too many disingenuous little rebellions against a style dutifully employed throughout, too few acts of genuine cruelty on a work meant to plant a flag against “the big city kids,” the punk mainstream that goes thump in the night.

Lacking the boldness of similar act Ghost Mice’s full-on fantastical lyricism while banking on sentimentality played out with more energy and creativity elsewhere, Mixtapes’ Even on the Worst Nights has insufficient originality to offer for an album overloaded with criticism of other peoples’ music. Coincidentally, its best asset is that it has just enough pop-tastic construction to please precisely the type of listener to whom Even on the Worst Nights wishes a fond fuck-you at every turn.