Album Review :: Big Awesome :: Party On

Written by: Andrea Janov, CC2K Music Editor

Big Awesome :: Party On :: Jetsam-Floatsam

A few years ago (maybe two?) Big Awesome released the Birdfeeder EP, it was 4 tracks that simply ended too soon. Now, they have finally released Party On which is their first full length. Party On is a record that ebbs and flows and takes you in surprising directions.

I am obsessed with the first track, What Grows Up Must Come Down, though I am not quite sure how to articulate why. It is an alternative track with a killer hook and a 80s new wave vibe. It has this visceral quality that hit you right in the gut and starts haunting you.

Hooper, gives the listener a feeling of intimacy, the track is filled with insight references and specific names, yet we never feel alienated, since the subject is so universal. “when I was young, those were the days / before we went our separate ways / we met each night between those streets…this has made me the person I’ve become”. Wolf is a chaotic indie garage rock track that approached you aggressively with them music then punches you in the guy with it’s lyrics and what they infer, “I heard the words you spoke to me / but they just ran right through my skull / I never thought you were serious / you were always crying wolf / I owe you a big apology / I owe you a little more respect”.

To Live and Die In The Dirty South is a song that seems a bit hopeless, and the lyrics are full of resignation, “I’ve been here eight years and nothing’s changed / a few more roads don’t mean a thing / there’s nothing I can do and nothing I can use…I’ve watched this fire burn / and turn into a pile of coals / this town seems to bury me” and while Party On starts off echoing those sentiments “but I’m too tired to turn around again / I look all over and I find love at the end” it takes a turn “I’m picking up again / I’m moving straight ahead / I can see a light at the end”.

Warnings has a chaotic creepy kind of vibe and Birdfeeder pt II (The Reckoning) is a messy track (and I mean that in all the best ways) with a killer extended metaphor. “I’ve been feeding birds again / the kindness spreads around / they’ve landed on my bench again…I have given all I could give / but then I realize I’m wrong / as long as I have love to give…I watch them fly away again / it hurts to say goodbye / I watch them flying back again…I pick my head up and see / the beauty that surrounds me”.

Through some of the lyrical content I started to put the pieces of the puzzle together, an attitude, a vibe, a reference to Cafe Metro until it all came together. One of the band members spent sometime in my hometown area, going to the same venues and being exposed to the same awesome scene. I am not sure if the connection to this album comes from that frame of reference, or if that will spread across to all of those punk who grew up in small town scenes, but I’ll always root for some hometown band members.

Party On’s sound is true to what we loved about Birdfeeder, it is still the hybrid of emo/indie/garage rock that was awesome about, but it is more mature and robust.