Spectreview: Jeff Rosenstock – NO DREAM

Jeff Rosenstock’s surprise followup to 2018’s excellent POST- grapples with the aftermath of the aftermath, and it may be his rawest, most alive album yet.

-MAGENTA-

“But the truth at the moment is
I’m tired of the truth”

The music that Jeff Rosenstock executes so profoundly well, the pop punk with echoes of third wave ska – maybe it came of age in the wrong decade. Looking back from now, did we really have that much to complain about in the Warped Tour era? Not meaning to be insensitive, but the shock of a major terrorist attack kind of seems like peanuts compared to the never-ending confluence of terrible things that are currently happening every second, simultaneously. Never mind the pandemic that’s already keeping us in a state of anxious unknown: it’s the existential threat of a destabilizing ecosystem; the constant reminder of a widening fissure between rich and poor; the daily injustices captured on video; the obvious federal corruption; the insult to intelligence of the propaganda machine; the actual scab of a man that’s meant to be leading us; the shrieking aviary of voices expressing every side of every opinion at once; and the constant, constant stream of mind-numbing content that’s designed to soothe the blow of it all like a can of liquid bandage poured over a leg severed from the knee down.

Here’s a question, spoken tentatively: why isn’t the music that’s popular now reflecting any of this? There’s an argument to be made that it does already, at least in a few notable acts. There’s also an argument that it doesn’t need to. Music doesn’t inherently bear a responsibility to open eyes or alert the masses, especially nowadays when more attention-grabbing forms of media are not only widely available but almost inescapable. Listening to Jeff Rosenstock’s surprise-released follow-up to 2018’s excellent POST-, it’s hard not to daydream of an alternate universe where the loud rush of shouts and snares never went out of style, where this music invades the homes of millions of people instead of the devotees that work hard to keep the spirit alive. Maybe then we’d feel more prepared, as a country, to confront our looming dangers.

At thirty-seven years old with countless tours and band experiences under his belt, Rosenstock is a certified master of the genre, and the way he constructs his records with the curatorial power of a live performer is always impressive. Even considering his work with Bomb The Music Industry! and all of his other side projects, NO DREAM might just be the rawest, most-alive record he’s put out yet. It’s built with an expert’s sense of craftsmanship but delivered with the joyous sloppiness of a soul pushed to the end of their rope.

IF POST- strived to capture the circumstances that led us to Trump’s election, NO DREAM operates similarly with the aftermath: the unending terribleness of the world at large, the anxiety it creates, and the coping strategies we’ve forged in response. Though it was recorded before the arrival of the pandemic (and therefore free of any insight into that current predicament) it still feel completely caught up with the specific issues of the present day. Typical to his MO, it’s political, empathetic, and above all deeply personal with an ear for the present tense and an ability to dig out the kinds of deep-seated truths we often attempt to spackle over. But this record is less about modern life than modern living, as it often explores the breakdowns in communication that disrupt our mental states. Sure, there are still ideological monsters at play, but NO DREAM’s loudest assertion is how the problem lies within us, how we’re unable (or increasingly unwilling) to deal with the cacophony of awfulness confronting us daily. On opener “NO TIME,” we yield under the crushing expectations of the standards we (aka the free market) has built for ourselves; on “Nikes (Alt)” we fall into its trap, seeking comfort and meaning in hollow materialism. The title track, potentially one of the best songs in Rosenstock’s catalog, uses its dynamic structure to spell out that message out so clearly it’s like staring into the sun. Rosenstock remains a sadomasochist reveling in the necessary pain that comes from confronting ugly truths, and as usual, on NO DREAM he refracts that message through himself to soften the blow and avoid being overly didactic.

Those initial alarm bells slowly diminish as the record runs, in their place a sort of travelogue that plays off of the stage he sets in those opening moments. On these later tracks, his lyrics betray an exhaustion grounded in both the touring lifestyle (like on the vicarious “***BNB”) and the Internet’s sensory overload (on the unfortunately-titled “The Beauty of Breathing”). Rosenstock paints these experiences with a lyrical vividness that’s extremely relatable for some and escapist for everyone else. In typical pop-punk fashion his words often cut straight to the heart of the matter, but he also doesn’t shy away from lapses into poetry, like in the relational vignette of “Honeymoon Ashtray.” The energy never wanes though, and each of these songs is crammed with left turns and singalong moments that gradually wear down your defenses until you’re unconsciously singing along to the choruses in your head. From the self-immolation anthem “Old Crap” to the swerving hooks of “State Line” all the way to the closing moments of the passionate, gear-shifting “Ohio Tpke,” the material on NO DREAM provides further evidence that Rosenstock simply can’t write a disagreeable song.

It’s a shame that punk music needs its defenders in 2020, but the antiquity of the sound, along with the ideals it represents, fit less and less into the industry machine today. Fighting for your morals, sticking to uncompromising honesty, rejecting the taint of commercialism: all of these are harder and harder to do when the margins of sustainability for working musicians grow ever tighter, when the stress of meeting those margins works to tear the scene apart from within. Yet through his music, and through the way he operates, Jeff Rosenstock has become a role model for a group of artists aiming to keep the DIY dream alive. NO DREAM is a testament to his power, both as an artist and as a galvanizing proponent of a better world.

Recommended for blood and sweat.