Before and After in Bloomington, MN

If
Yeah
was the sound of
the Wannadies
getting bad blood out of their system, then
Before and After
is its joyous, carefree follow-up, a record as free and uninhibited as the last weeks of June, when the promise of the entire summer still lies ahead. Well, mostly anyway --
haven't completely abandoned their demons, as a song like
"Piss on You"
shows -- but this is basically a happier
Wannadies
than the last time out. So why does it feel so hollow?
was marked by a slightly difficult birth -- initially conceived as a "concept" double album in which the first disc was "go out and party" music and the second was mellow "come down" music, the project was trimmed down to a single disc. The concept stuck, though, as the first half a dozen songs (the "before" half) are, as they said, the "party" songs, and the latter half ("after") are mostly reflective
ballads
. The problem is that
seem to be in somewhat of a songwriting rut. While there was evidence of this on
, they covered it up with walls of strings,
disco
beats, and
T. Rex
-style
glam rock
, but on
the style is more warts and all, exposing that their hooks simply aren't quite as strong this time out. That doesn't mean this is a failure -- a decent
album is better than most
guitar pop
bands' best works -- and many of the tunes here, like
"Skin,"
"Piss on You,"
and
"Little By Little"
rank as
classics. But as an album,
falls a bit behind. Maybe it's better to view it as a collection of two conceptually related EPs -- which is fair, and even more or less accurate -- and on that level, it's at least an interesting experiment. ~ Jason Damas