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The You - For the Masses

Rating

RIYL

Transient Tractor
Decibully
Bob Dylan
Ben Folds
Mark Mothersbaugh

Tracklist

1. Young Bluesman
2. Bad Person
3. Nothing Goin' On
4. I'm Going to Kill Myself
5. Ain't It Good to Feel Love?
6. End of an Era
7. Back Her Scene Up
8. Horse Opera
9. The Community Plunge
10. Bait & Switch
11. Lindsay Schwartz
12. Broken-Down Storefront
13. Thrown from a Moving Vehicle

With the resurgence of the folk/alt-country movement, it was only a matter of time before bands with less talent started to catch onto the trend. While The You could never really be called untalented, they do obviously trail the leaders in the genre by a fairly wide margin. The tracks found on For the Masses share nothing in common with Depeche Mode, but do share an awful lot in common with a band like Decibully or, for sparse bits of time, the John Butler Trio, even if they do pale in comparison.

Perhaps it's that the album is compiled of tracks written over a vast span of time, which means there's not a lot of cohesion to the record, that makes the album a tough one to listen to straight through. Maybe it's the array of musicians that entered and exited the fold as the album was conceived, then finally birthed upon the unsuspecting public, that makes you skip a track here and there. Main songwriter Josh Verbanets is the rock in this mild ocean of sound, a man who has created an album full of by-the-book, though still-intriguing, folk gems.

While opener "Young Bluesman" is a bit rough, "Bad Person," "Nothing Goin' On," and "I'm Going to Kill Myself" (tracks 2-4) are a 1-2-3 punch the likes of which any baseball team would mutilate to obtain. From there, For the Masses hits a few more rough stretches. While a few tracks hark back to the old days when the Beatles hadn't yet entered their psychedelic phase or, at the very least, before The Who got crazy, things still tend toward the rougher edge of Verbanets's vision. For what it's worth, though, Dave Schewe's drums are nearly always on point and make the tracks that do tend to lean toward the more disheartening spectrum seem much more vibrant than they truly are. Hopefully, he sticks with the group, as he will always be a welcome addition to anything Verbanets does.

For the Masses has a few shining moments that make a purchase well worth it. It's a welcome addition to any burgeoning alt-country collection ("Bait and Switch" carries enough exuberance and energy to ease the transition), but the well-versed might want to be more wary of taking the plunge of cold-buying it (e.g. "Lindsay Schwartz," even though it's ever so slight a comparison, sounds a bit too much like Blink-182 trying their hand at the genre). Give a few tracks a listen and make your decision. Again, if you're a newcomer, definitely give this album a listen; buy it, in fact. As it stands, For the Masses is an excellent starter album for both you and The You, as it doesn't venture into the more vast realms of the genre. This gives its audience time to gain a feel for the band and, at the same time, allows the band itself to pick its way around the path it has chosen to navigate. With this fine debut, it is easy to look forward to their next release, as the band has finally cemented its lineup. This should allow more active input on the creative process, which should further establish the band's sound and make for a much more interesting listen the next time through.

--Ben Rice

Author

sir mix-a-lot

Last updated: 09/29/2009 08:54PM