Every other week, Ryanđșđžand DanđŹđ§give each other an album to listen to and then talk about it. Most of these albums will probably be some form of emo (at least to start). Yes, we are aware this would probably work better as a podcast.
Dan: Do you want to acknowledge the state of the world, or do you just want to get right into it?
Ryan: I feel like Iâve gotten into a pretty decent end of the world rhythm at this point. Constantly teetering on the edge of the void, but never falling in. What about you?
Dan: I think I adjusted to the new normal way too easily and I'm waiting for everyone else to catch up. Thatâs true youâve been a real early self-distancing pioneer.
Ryan: Iâve really gotten into wine. My local wine shop has an app you have to use now because the physical store closed down.
Dan: The only good meme I've seen was about introverts choosing isolation (good) and isolation being forced on them (bad). There was a bunny in it. I'll send it to you.
Ryan: I love memes. Iâm also very excited for this week. Paul Baribeau. What did you think?
Dan: I feel like this was your ace in the hole, and I'm wondering if you're mad you played it now. Because Paul Baribeau slaps.
Ryan: After you sent me Casitone I was like, âOk Danâs gotta hear Paul Baribeau.â
Dan: It's basically everything I want from a folk punk album: short catchy tunes that serve up significant trauma in way that makes the world seem more bearable.
Ryan: âNever Get To Knowâ man, what a thing.
Dan: Like this guy is really hurting, but if he can wrap an upbeat melody around his shit, then dealing with my problems should be a cake walk in comparison. âNever Get To Knowâ is like listening to a therapy session and then starting a golf clap because you're so impressed.
Ryan: Itâs monumental. His discography is one of those Spotify pages where you can just put it on and let it go. Every album of his is also surprisingly different in a way that a lot of folk acts really canât pull off.
Dan: He rips your soul out and you want to say thank you. You also want to dance on a table. For a man and his guitar, he does a lot.
Ryan: Iâll also say if you look up tabs for his songs heâs doing REALLY weird chords. Like all of his songs have weird flourishes and strange rhythms. If you havenât yet, there are a few live performances on YouTube that are pretty wild.
Dan: It's another artist I just discovered who already bugged out and went home. It's a shame as we could use some Paul Baribeau right now.
Ryan: You threw me for a loop this week. With fucking Millencolin.
Dan: Sweden's finest punk outfit.
Ryan: This was a very different Millencolin than what I was expecting too.
Dan: I had never heard this album, not entirely, but there's a very good reason why I sent it. In 2001 I was given a mixtape by a friend at the cinema I was working in. Can't remember why he made me a mix, but he was into his pop punk and wanted to share I guess. I don't even remember what was on it, a lot of punk and emo featuring the usual suspects at that time, but the last song was âThe Balladâ by Millencolin. And it spoke to 17-year-old me in that âCatcher In The Ryeâ kind of way: like this was written for me, an angsty teen who no-one understands.
Ryan: âThe Balladâ is one of those classic mid-00s banger pop punk closing tracks.
Dan: It's sort of my âKonstantine,â I can't listen to it without getting a little choked up.
Ryan: Itâs also incredibly jarring! Because it is on a very different vibe than the rest of the album hahaha. My reaction was like âwait what is THIS?â
Dan: âThe Balladâ feels like it was written for a film soundtrack or something, and produced by an entirely separate team.
Ryan: Yes! Also before we get too far out, I just gotta say: I literally thought this was gonna be a ska album haha. Like all I knew about Millencolin was that they did like skate punk ska stuff like Suicide Machines. So this whole album surprised me.
Dan: It's a little heavier than I thought it would be, but good heavy.
Ryan: Itâs almost American Pie-core but yeah itâs a little darker.
Dan: I'm honestly relieved that you liked it, sending you music for this newsletter has been a source of some anxiety.
Ryan: Everyone should be afraid of my superior taste. Says man who still listens to ska in 2020.
Ryanâs album for Dan:
Paul Baribeau by Paul Baribeau
TL;DR: It sounds like the Moldy Peaches had a breakdown
Tell me more: Paul Baribeau's self-titled debut comes in at a scant 24 minutes, but in the space of a sitcom episode he gives us 14 fast-paced folk-punk ditties, filled with pain, angst, suffering and grief, somehow stuffing each one with enough urgency and humour and melody to make the whole thing an absolute joy. This is an album you'll listen to three times in one sitting.
Baribeau crafts melodies like a manic Paul McCartney; effortlessly and compulsively it seems, as if these are his earworms and he simply must get them out. No sooner are you snagged on a hook than he serves up another, songs ending and starting without a breath, breaking your heart on a closing line and moving on before you've had time to notice you're now weeping to another uptempo jaunt through his personal trauma.
He's a very good guitar player and a so-so singer, but the medium is only a delivery mechanism for the message, and both his frantic strumming and strained vocals fit the material perfectly. Where he truly excels is songwriting craft. This is acoustic autobiography, distilling anecdotes, characters and scenes into perfect musical novellas, ranging from just 30 seconds to a comparatively epic 2m43s. The delivery is so matter-of-fact it never becomes woe-is-me, as it might in the hands of any other artist making self-reflective depression pop in 2005.
The album covers topics like absent parents, suicide, squandered talents and lost love. For Baribeau these are the breaks. He doesn't want pity or sympathy, but when he fully connects with a particularly devastating revelation, like his mother's alcoholism, his voice cracking for the first and only time on this record, it's truly breathtaking stuff. Never Get To Know might be the most depressing song you've ever heard but you'll be too caught up with the toe-tapping genius on display to realise.
It's not hyperbole to say Paul Baribeau is the saviour folk music needs. Two short years after this album came out, Justin Vernon dropped For Emma, Forever Ago and changed the face of popular folk for a good decade thereafter. Though Vernon's Bon Iver project has since moved on to pastures weird, folk is sort of stuck in the sad boy with a guitar territory he cemented.
Imagine if Baribeau had caught the zeitgeist instead. I'm so here for a matter-of-fact depressive with a guitar saying check out my pain, it's entertaining as hell.
Favourite song(s): Hell they're all good, but pay particular attention to âNever Get To Know,â âBlue Eyes,â âBoys Like Me,â and âThings I Don't Do.â
Emoji rating: đđșđđđ/5
Danâs album for Ryan:
Pennybridge Pioneers by Millencolin
TL;DR: Swedish Suicide Machines becomes Swedish Piebald
Tell me more: All I really knew of Millencolin going into this is that they provided one(?) of the songs on a Tony Hawkâs Pro Skater soundtrack. Gun to my head, I absolutely could not have told you what song that was or which game. So thatâs the vibe I was sort of expecting for Pennybridge Pioneers. What I didnât know is that this 2000 album was actually the moment Millencolin shifted their sound. They abandoned their ska-tinge skate punk sound and went for a More Mature Sound (MMS). Usually when ska punk bands do this, they focus on the wrong stuff. That sense of spontaneity and creative joy they had in their ska days gets dropped and usually the new MMS album is a slog.
Pennybridge Pioneers actually successfully pulls off a new creative direction without losing its personality! Maybe itâs because Millencolin is Swedish, and thus were insulted from early-00s scene politics happening in America, but it seems like the band actually had more they wanted to do creatively and buttoning things up helped them focus.
I think the less said about their lyrics probably the better. If youâve ever spent any time listening to European rock music, youâre probably familiar with the weird uncanny valley of non-English speakers writing lyrics for punk and emo songs. (Thereâs a similar thing that happens when Australians play metalcore.) There are some pretty specific American cultural things that sort of get lost in translation. That said, even though the words theyâre singing are a bit off, Millencolinâs choruses are absolute bangers â âNo Cigarâ is a monster of a song.
And then thereâs the albumâs closer. âThe Balladâ is such a curveball musically that I felt like I needed a whole paragraph to dig into it. Itâs the albumâs only acoustic track and musically it sounds more The Hold Steady than any of the aggressive pop punk you heard on the rest of Pennybridge Pioneers â that is until the song goes minor in the second half. If I had heard this song when I was 13 it would have blown my fucking mind. This is real âlistening to sad songs on your CD player in the backseat of your parentâs car watching the rain hit the windowâ kind of music. Hearing it for the first time at 30, it, uh, doesnât give me that reaction, but I definitely know it would have.
Favorite song(s): âNo Cigar,â âMaterial Boy,â âThe Balladâ
Emoji Rating: đžđȘđ€đ»đđ»đ„§/5
Ryan: You have the unenviable task this week though of picking a standout Baribeau song. When all of his songs are as dense as novels haha.
Dan: It's unenviable but not impossible, because there's no wrong answer. I think hearing any song from this album would make people want to seek out the rest. And because I think our readers can handle it. And because it's just that good
Ryan: Oh boy.
Dan: I'm going with âNever Get To Knowâ. It's like Jaws, once you see it you can't get in the water ever again without thinking about it. This is a song that will stay with you.
Ryan: Iâm scared to do this, but thereâs a track I like more than âThe Balladâ.
Dan: Oh wow. Okay shoot.
Ryan: âNo Cigarâ is so my shit.
Dan: Yes it absolutely bangs. The opening track too, what a pace setter. Tbh I sent you this album on the strength of âNo Cigarâ and âThe Ballad,â the opener and closer. Even if you hated the rest I knew you'd be into âNo Cigarâ.
Ryan: The rest is good, solid pop punk but I get the feeling they wrote No Cigar and were like âaw shit.â
Dan: A solid pick for the playlist, even if you never look up anything else you'll be happy having heard it.
Ryan: What are we thinking for the next issue? Another random roll of the dice or a theme?
Dan: Well I have an album in mind, and it's the second album from a band who had a phenomenal debut.
Ryan: A sophomore slump or album of the year theme interesting (thatâs a Fall Out Boy reference (one I think Iâve made in this newsletter before)).
Dan: It's a different speed and wasn't as popular but in some ways is equally as good, so unexpected follow up maybe.
Ryan: Iâm into it.
Dan: Sweet. Panic's second album coming my way. Panic!'s? It pained me to punctuate that.
Ryan: Thank you. Respect the !