The Lawrence Arms – Metropole

Back with their first length record in almost 8 years, Chicago punks The Lawrence Arms have picked up where they left off and delivered an outstanding punk rock record in Metropole. It is the band’s 6^th full length, and their first new material since 2009’s Buttsweat Tears EP. It’s not as if the band were dormant during these intervening years. All of the band members were involved in other projects; Brendan Kelly with The Falcons, Chris McCaughan with Sundowner and drummer Neil Hennessy joined fellow Chicago punks The Smoking Popes for a tour in 2007. That is all in addition to being on the road themselves, and a live DVD release which finally saw the light of day in 2012.

The band have always had a penchant for penning lyrics that tell a cohesive and visual story, and that remains the case with the 12 songs on Metropole. The stories here are dark, featuring multiple references to death, dying and lives devoid of meaning, all delivered with such a raw honesty that is heart wrenching and beautiful at the same time. Musically this isn’t a massive departure from previous efforts (although there is more than a little hint of Jawbreaker in the guitar work on Metropole – and that is not a criticism!), the songs are melody driven and vocal duties are shared by Kelly and McCaughan to excellent effect, especially on both Chilean District and Hickey Avenue.

Brendan Kelly is known for his blunt honesty and sharp wit, (as any of his twitter followers can attest to – see below), and although lyrics such as: ‘this is the end of all things’ (Metropole), ‘And the corpse I leave behind, ain’t gonna be no pretty boy, its a sick sack of disease’ (Seventeener (17^th and 37^th)) or even ‘here’s a fucking spoiler, everybody dies’ (Acheron River) come across as dark and depressing, but after multiple listens and taken in the correct context they illustrate an irreverent, dark sense of humour that peppers the entire record. 

Although the record is incredibly strong from start to finish and never has you reaching for the skip button, there are 2 songs which I just kept coming back to; The YMCA Down The Street from the Clinic – an achingly depressing story of a dying man reflecting on his life, which almost makes you feel guilty for tapping your foot and singing along and Drunk Tweets, a snotty, 2 minute frenetic punk rock rant.

It seems disingenuous to pick out songs that stand above any other on Metropole because in reality, there are no bad tracks on it. It is a very impressive record in which the band have found the perfect balance of melody driven punk rock and melancholic storytelling. I may have used a lot of words to describe the record, but it could be summed up in two: Fucking. Brilliant.