There were suspicions from the start. One excellent album, one a croc of shit. I should have known, I should have thought it through. My optimism failing my objectiveness yet again. It’s been eight years since Decadence came out. The playful collaboration between Darryl Palumbo and Dan The Automator which swelled above the sum of its parts, capturing them both at creative high points. Since then Dan has become the underwhelming indie-band gun for hire to help capture that “cool hippity-hop vibe”, whilst Darryl has done… Well, not a lot really. Don’t get me started on that second Head Automatica album, it’s atrocious. The saccharine levels invoke type-2 diabetes on even the most casual of listeners. It has the dubious honour of being one of the few specimens seemingly more inspired by the vapidity of latter day Rivers Cuomo than his younger, more awkward and interesting counterpart.
However time is a healer. I wanted to believe. I wanted to hypothesise that somewhere along the line was a table, maybe with a bottle of dandelion and burdock and a clean, new notepad sitting upon it. As level-fucking-headed as it gets, an epitome struck Darryl. “Holy shit!” I fantasised within the image of a thought bubble which stemmed from his head. “That second album was rubbish, maybe I should learn my lessons and create something to silence the doubters and put my magnificent vocal capacity to good use”. Alas my time would have been better used fantasising about Bob Carolgees naked in a bath of beans. Even if those were the intentions, there was no evidence to suggest that this was the case. At least the image of Bob least would have given me a worthy erection.
It’s pretty ballsy, when you think about it. The average Glassjaw fan enjoying more than your average amount of CHUGGA-CHUGGA, this project has had to prove its worth from the start. How tempting would it have been for Darryl to just write this off as a mid-twenties crisis and write the LP follow-up to Worship and Tribute the tattoo’d, pierced attendees so obviously crave. Though the overlap in styles between those two projects should produce a skinny epicentre of mutual fans in the Venn diagram of taste, that number still far outweighs those who have discovered the band through other means. This music is a curiosity to them, a genre aside that allows them to label “eclectic” on their Facebook profile music tastes.
Four songs in total were played from said career highlight Decadence, three of which extensively reworked to remove any sense of urgency or menace, reducing them to their blandest of components. Imagine listening to Beating Heart Baby underwater whilst a child drowns next to your submerged head. You want to save it, but you’re paralised from the nose down. This is literally what it was like literally. Only Brooklyn is Burning escaped unscathed, but without the deft production of the Automator, even that fell flat. There were other songs, sure. Some from that second album, some new. Not one note memorable despite such efforts to make it so. Like a boy too accommodating to his female friend to ever be respected or considered as a potential suitor. There’s nothing to like in these songs, they’re trying too hard.
Worship were the perfect support. Another example of great talent not put to its best use. Perhaps trying to capitalise on Friendly Fires announcing a change of direction, the unassuming collage of Tears For Fears, Junior Boys and other synth balladeers of their ilk is simultaneously impossible to hate but also impossible to love. Octaved vocal harmonies? I see what you did there. Every between-song opportunity was taken to remind people of their merch stall. It’s a constant reminder that this performance is not a moment to be remembered. No commanding of the stage or engagement in the music they create, instead the feeling of an extended advert for their craving of success and corporate sponsorship.
For Head Automatica though, no moment sums it better as the final notes of the final song echo out as the band exit the stage, presumably ready for the encore. A polite clapping follows before an above average number of people file out. A shout of “THAT WAS SHIT!” receives no disagreement from the crowd. A few minutes later, presumably due to the underwhelming response, the equipment is dismantled and the encore never comes. Earlier in the night Darryl proclaimed “It’s been a long time since we’ve played here”, I imagine it will be a lot longer till the next time.
