Spectreview: The Mighty Mighty Bosstones – When God Was Great

Released: May 7, 2021

Ska
(Pop Punk)

-MAROON-

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“Let’s let the merry go round
Let’s hear the musical cheers
Let’s get it back up off the ground
Even if no one still cares”

Aside from the fact that I found myself in a ska band in college – a position that I feel happens to everybody, somehow, at some point in their lives – I’m ashamed to admit that I was exactly like every other person who dismissed ska as a musical farce. I saw the plaid pants and the wallet chains and the loud shirts and the crowds dancing like that one episode of Seinfeld with Elaine and the thumbs, and I said, “no.” Then I ended up buying the Shins’ fourth record on CD, so who’s the fool, really?

Here’s where I’m forced to eat crow: I decided to check out the Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ new record, and turns out I dig it. How can I not? The Bosstones have been leading the charge for third-wave ska for almost twenty-five years now, and they clearly know how to do what they love. That’s the missing piece of the ska puzzle that clicked for me; while it might be goofy (even cringy) on the outside, it’s wholly unpretentious music that doesn’t feel like it needs to mitigate its sense of fun or community for some dry artistic achievement. (Now tell that to 21-year-old me in earnest and see if you can get him to change his mind.)

When God Is Great is nowhere near a game-changer of a record, but it is yet another adept display of the Bosstones’ iconic ska power, and it came out last week. The fact that a band would want to play music together for over thirty years and not want to tear themselves apart is reason enough to dive in, but the songs here are also, overall, good rollicking fun. Tracks like “I Don’t Believe In Anything,” which smartly saves the horns to punctuate the hooks, and “What It Takes,” with its piano-led bop and catchy guitar lead, cover the length of this hour-long ska fest. As always, the arrangements are solid but they find an added depth from the combinative effect of rock instruments and horns; here, maybe it’s because of the average age of the performers or the archaic nature of third-wave ska in general, but the fixation on mid-tempo tempers that effect into something resembling a Jimmy Buffett set on amphetamines.

If it sounds like I’m being sardonic here, I promise I’m trying not to! Barring my own ingrained biases (and all it took was to think about that Shins CD collecting dust in my closet), I genuinely enjoyed most of the songs on this record, especially the ones where the blood seemed to pump hardest. See, for example, “The Truth Hurts,” which boasts a crazy catchy pre-verse; and “Decide,” which runs at such a high velocity compared to everything here that it makes for a natural opener. “Lonely Boy,” meanwhile, might be a little too cheesy for its own good, but it’s a song about Kingston, Massachusetts. I don’t think anyone in the history of America has written a song about Kingston, Massachusetts, and so I have to be here for it.

It’s when the Bosstones approach current events that When God Is Great loses a little its luster. It’s not the subject matter, although I don’t think I needed the image of a crowd of overwhelmingly-white people singing along to another milquetoast take on George Floyd (“The Killing of Georgie (Part III)”). It’s that it approach topics like the ongoing pandemic with less profundity than obviousness. Of course, that’s the point; ska is about unity and solidarity, and the sentiment behind songs like “M O V E” and “I Don’t Wan’t To Be You,” are meant to be shared among other people, instead of being pumped into your ears in the middle of a cafe. Still, overall, it diminishes the record as a headphones listen.

That is, until eight-minute curtain call “The Final Parade” picks the energy right back up. I don’t think there’s a better time for it to exist; besides the fact that it’s eight minutes, which is unheard of in the ska world, its many guest features and allegorical narrative make for a succinct encapsulation of what, exactly, third wave ska was all about. It’s proud, but in it’s self-effacement it also doesn’t ignore how ska’s reputation fluctuated over the last couple of decades. Because of that, it makes for a nostalgic last call that’s both ecstatic and poignant. I guess you had to be there.

Recommended for taking the T southbound.