GARAGEB& - Jesse Rutherford: Review
Jesse Rutherford
is the frontman of pop rock band The Neighborhood who blew up on the back of their breakout single Sweater Weather in 2012. The band's first two albums we're moderately successful and met with mixed reviews as well as their hip hop inspired mixtape #000000 & #FFFFFF. In 2017 Jesse released his debut solo effort & to mostly mixed reviews and underwhelming commercial performance before The Neighborhood returned in late 2017 and 2018 with a series of critically acclaimed EPs and their 3rd project The Neighborhood.
Review By Lavender:
I was never really a die hard fan of The Neighborhood or Jesse Rutherford during their rise. Songs like Sweater Weather and R.I.P 2 My Youth are great pop rock tracks but it didn't seem like there was much depth to what they were doing. This all changed after the band went on an absolute tear last year, Releasing numerous EPs and their 3rd album that all ultimately culminated in more great Neighborhood song then I thought there would ever be. But given how short Garbage& is, how little it has been promoted, and how underwhelmed I was with Jesse's last album, my expectations we're not high. As it turns out, for good reason.
One thing I am more than comfortable admitting is that I enjoy the opening song on this thing quite a bit. Tunnelvision is a Strokes inspired guitar centric pop rock tune. It oozes new york influences with fuzzed out guitar and distorted vocal effects but the catchy track at its core in unavoidable and kicks the album off on a pretty solid note. Junkie is the next song I enjoyed as it's a pretty driving pop tune with simple but effective lyrics and one of the most expressive performances you'll hear from Jesse across this album. My Ways was a track I hated at first but as its annoying chorus wore me down I did reach a point where I have to admit it's a decent tune that scratched an itch I didn't really know I had. And finally Bi is probably my favorite track here despite the fact that it pulls big time from The 1975. The song has a blissful chorus that I absolutely love and is one of the only songs on here long enough to get a decent build going.
Unfortunately that's pretty much it for songs that I came away from positively on this album. While songs like Puppy Love, USAliens, and Rock & Roll DJ are immediately forgettable, they are far from the albums worst moments. Girls & Boys has some big time mixing problems but that isn't really even what does it. It wastes its tight instrumental with an awful sputtering outro, a hook that never brings it home and no real semblance of songwriting. R.I.P Off is a contender for the worst song here and the lyrics are at points laughable and the hook is an incredibly strange one that does not land at all. It also transitions from randomly different sounding passages throughout that are super disorienting and have no real connection. Story Of My Life helps the record stumble to its end with some janky self-depreciating lyrics and a strange hook that makes the song forgettable at it's best moments and confusing at it's worst. Hollywood Friends has a decent introduction but completely devolves into nonsense when the beat and trap flavored high-hats kick in and it ultimately just falls flat on its face. The next track was one I was worried about from the very moment I first opened the albums tracklist, The N Word. As it turns out rather than a captivating or controversial moment, the track is a four second interlude that only features Jesse yelling "NO!" and nothing else. Now that I think about it no song encapsulates how I feel about the album quite as well as that one. 3/10
