(2023-09-01) Quote Unquote Records
Let me start with, as anyone who knows me, already knows I am a big fan of Jeff Rosenstock. But even with that being said, I honestly had no idea how much I needed a new album from the man and his band until I saw last Thursday that in classic Rosenstyle, he decided to release the new one a day ahead of schedule. Suffice it to say, I have been listening to Hellmode almost constantly since then. The first single from the album, “Liked U Better” dropped back in May and with its opening acoustic guitar strum jumping right into Jeff’s staccato vocal over Kevin Higuchi’s pounding drum beat and eventual sing along chorus, it was immediately apparent that we were in store for what sounded like another classic Jeff Rosenstock banger. The end of June brought us the second single, “Doubt”. Again we get Kevin’s heavy handed drum beat as the basis of the intro (and for that matter, the bulk of the song) but unlike “Liked U Better”, “Doubt” is a slow burner. For the first three minutes of the tune we get to hear Jeff singing a gentle and heartfelt story of being stuck in the inertia of life in the 21st century and its not until the last minute of the song that in classic Death Rosenstock that he and the band pick it up with a blast of hope and possible redemption to break out of the malaise. We then in July got treated to the third song from the LP. Not quite a title track, “Healmode” is actually quite a beautiful love song. At first glance one might think that it’s another song of redemption in a similar vein to “Doubt” but when all is said and done, the song protagonist just wants to spend the rest of his mundane /glorious life with the love of his life.
Jeff Rosenstock, as good as any musician out there today, manages to capture the angst, frustrations and anxieties of life in 21st century America. He does it with a fair amount of irony, a great amount of sarcasm and a boat load of flair. To the outsiders and misfits that are Jeff’s fanbase, this 21st Century existence can be pretty depressing and Rosenstock realizes this. But he manages to sing and write about these tales and burdens of life with a sense of humor that allows the listener to forget their troubles for the 40 minutes or so that Hellmode runs.
Before I get into the content any deeper, let me first say that Jeff’s voice sounds as good as it has on virtually any of his previous recorded output. Be it on a breakneck screamer like “Head” (how does he manage to throw out all those words so damned fast?) or an introspective ballad like “Soft Living” his vocals just flat out sound fantastic. And as long as I’m speaking of vocals, I think there is something that needs to be said. There are a handful of contemporary singers who were born to sing together. We had Marvin Gaye and Tami Tyrell, we had Graham Parsons and Emmylou Harris and I’ll even throw Joey Kneiser and Kelly Smith (of the criminally underappreciated band, Glossary) into this mix. Well I think it’s time to start thinking about Jeff and Laura Stevenson in this pantheon of duet pairings. Their harmonizing on “Life Admin” is just otherworldly beautiful. It’s a sound that can only be produced by musical soul mates to which Jeff and Laura certainly fit the bill.
To wrap this up, Hellmode isn’t anything new. Rosenstock is firmly in the camp that believes that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and his songwriting and playing (and that of his incredible band) is not broken by any stretch of the imagination so he and they give us what they have always given us. Hellmode however in my humble opinion, just might do the tried and true even better than anything we’ve heard from Jeff in the past. Jeff’s ability to capture the misery of today and to meld it into songs that grab the listener and pull them into an alternative universe where that misery can be celebrated and danced to and sung along to and as a result forgotten (the misery that is) for 40 minutes is a blessing that we should all relish in.
And while I should close on that final statement, I do want to say that I for one can’t wait to be in the pit to experience all of these new songs. I already know that “Future Is Dumb” just might get me killed since I know that I am not going to keep myself from joining in the mayhem which will inevitably ensue when the band kicks that one off.
And one final last, last thing. Is it too soon to be thinking about a possible SKAmode in the distant future?
W.S. Walcott Medicine Show 
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