Spectreview: Strange Ranger – Remembering the Rockets

You can stream Remembering the Rockets through ——-> The Fader <——-

-LIGHT GREEN-

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Underground rock’s focus has shifted quite a bit into easy listenability over the last decade, and it’s been an ideal environment for the ancient, massive tree of power-pop to grow and flourish, as bands like The Sidekicks, Bonny Doon and Twin Peaks have all individually twisted the old genre’s propulsive melodies and emotional turbulence into sounds both fresh and classic. Strange Ranger started as Sioux Falls, hitting a soft spot in those hoping for a Modest Mouse revival in 2016’s Rot Forever, but their rebranding as Strange Ranger allowed them to carry on with relatively maturer music. Two albums later, the change is remarkable; Remembering the Rockets sees them lifting themselves mostly out of the gloom of 2017’s Daymoon and into decidedly poppier territories, even if they still carry with them a subdued, nostalgic sensibility.

The first moments of opener “Leona” break the ice, allowing time for the adjustment to 90’s pop-punk drums, a rhythmically wordless chorus and chiming keys to set the tone. The band has never sounded so optimistic, or at least so expressive of emotions other than self-loathing, as the autumnal jangle of songs like “Sunday” brings them closer to soft, shape-shifting melodists like Teenage Fanclub and The Feelies. The diversity of sounds across the album also works effectively; there’s a little 80’s goth spread over the album, in the initially simple synth tones of songs like “Message To You” and “Living Free” and the peculiar Kevin Shields-like voice of lead vocalist Isaac Eiger, while remnants of the late-90’s indie-alt they initially borrowed from is still present on tracks like the tender “Pete’s Hill.” Speaking of Eiger, his lyrics betray the simplicity of the sounds he and the band are constructing, as what would normally be straightforward numbers are peppered with anxieties about the current political climate (and the climate in general). “Planes In Front of the Sun” seem to hit upon a common thought on Eiger’s mind: the fear of raising a family in a world facing a rapid catastrophe. Rather than dragging the album down though, Eiger’s anxious words play against the record’s constantly shifting sound, bringing a lucid honesty and a realistic vibrancy to the proceedings.

It’s a consistently solid listen save for perhaps the only two clunkers on the record, the well-intentioned but messy “Ranch Style Home,” and the sluggish “Beneath the Lights” (with a beguiling vocoder outro). Overall though, Remembering the Rockets boats both a vaster litany of moods and a greater sense of cohesion than either of their previous works, and it’s the most impressive record yet from a gracefully evolving act.

Recommended for a road trip through the flame-tipped trees of New England.