GutterPutter

It’s easy for one to buy into the appeal to the golden days – the time where there’s a true sense of adventure in every hit & every album have something to add into the ever-so-diverse canon of popular music. The 1960s-70s is accepted by virtually everyone as being the melting pot of one innovation after another especially with the likes of the Beatles, Beach Boys & Led Zepplin. With the seemingly exponential growth in songwriting & composition alongside the then-young populace of baby boomers, much of the generation is left with a yearning for the past & while complaints around the degradation of the quality of music always ring out well throughout the past decades, the advent of the internet makes the displeasure all the more clear. Now, it’s uncommon for one to be made aware of the whole ‘wrong generation’ talk or how the urban-inspired pop songs weren’t like the old days even if they cover the same tried trope of love.

As pop music mostly shifts to the sound of whatever sound is popular, Greta Van Fleet sticks out among many bands in the 2010s for going back to the classic rock sounds – including a near-endless amount of comparison with Led Zepplin for its hard rock basis & singer Josh Kiszka’s vocal performance being similar to Robert Plant’s. Their debut album released in 2018, Anthem of the Peaceful Army, received mixed reviews. Some enjoy it for being successful in its throwback aesthetic, others deride it for being too reliant on its old influences to make what is essentially a half-baked, insipid record that bites too much on retro music. However, we’re not talking about the band’s debut. We’re looking at their second record in The Battle at Garden’s Gate, released just over a week ago on April 16^th & while there have been some hype around some potential artistic growth, I just can’t feel it. If anything, there’s barely much positive commentary I can give to the record.

First, there’s a lot of focus being given on how epic & ambitious The Battle at Garden’s Gate will be compared to the last album, yet I find myself being incapable of buying into its grandiosity. Too much of the tracks in the album have the technical showmanship, yet it lacks a showing that it does indeed grow beyond its root. There might be some sprinkles of acoustic guitar playing, some fantastical lyricism, some more diversity in instrumentation, but it never wows me all the way through. In other words, it’s remarkably dull for all its larger-than-life proclamation, lacking in distinction in any way possible. Josh’s vocal performance irks me considerably as I find him too desperate to show his prowess at the cost of sincerity or even just flat out fun. The guitar, bass & drumming performance shows clear skills, but it never translate well to make the band’s musicianship go far beyond its peers. If anything, it only hammers home the abundance of criticism that it rips off the sound of the 70s too much without adding in something left-field that enriches it. Lyrically, it might try to present a mythic/prophetic sort of storytelling, but it feels too on-the-nose & it’s flawed both in providing a chorus that sticks & a verse that rings. One example I could include for my points would be in ‘The Barbarian’ – a standout track only because I feel that it proves my dislike of the record in its first verse:

‘Children with their toys of war

Birthright of death with a fiery breath

Funeral of innocence,

Painted up in the red and dressed in lead

We are’

Anti-war messages is used & is well-reliable because we can sympathise well enough with the personal losses & sacrifices that wouldn’t be required had it not been for the drive for conquest or dominance. In this verse, it’s too explicit in jeering the politicians without throwing in a witty interpretation, tries to elicit some ethos in death without a motif or sign to invite us into personal realms & in a fit of irony, it’s too ‘conventionally poetic’ in a sense on its penultimate line to portray graphical violence. Instead, it just comes off as being a bland showing of a lacklustre songwriting.

All of Jake’s guitar solos failed to awe, all the highs of Josh’s singing have failed to wow, the twinkles of the pianos have failed to move me, songs after songs blend in with one another as they’re too similar with each other, there’s next to nothing about the sophomore effort that catches my attention in the slightest. It doesn’t help that the mono-based production dilutes the record even more. This record wouldn’t even be of interest had it been released in the 70s, most would otherwise look for a record by Queens or look into Black Sabbath. This record, alongside Greta Van Fleet, thrives mostly on the back of non-stop nostalgia fuel especially with those who seldom wander out of what’s being played on the radio.

Finally, I want to make a sort of link between the direction of this album (& the band in general) alongside an underground darling that’s also known for its love for classic rock – none other than Spoon which is a brainchild of Britt Daniel & Jim Eno. Greta Van Fleet may’ve been known for following the path of the old hard rockers well, but Spoon is a sort of band that constantly pushes the traits of classic rock to sonically diverse extremes – the closest ‘comparable’ record being Girls Can Tell in 2001. However Beatlesque the record is, it’s also one that easily stands out above nearly all of its peers (even The Strokes but that’s my opinion!). As grand as The Battle at Garden’s Gate tries to be, any single one of the track from Spoon’s breakout album easily takes the cake from them from the immaculate arranging of instruments in the production to the delicate balance between poppy & poetic lyricism in each song. Britt Daniel’s ear for a hit song is by all account taking your old song from the 80s at most, tweak it subtly, produce it as elaborately as one can be. This leads to a track that can easily stand against time – the older populace are going to enjoy it for its clear rock showing but even the younger bunch are going to like it immensely for its adventurous sonic focus.

In a nutshell, The Battle at Garden’s Gate is simply not worth your time. Maybe if you’re a big fan of 70s music, you can take a listen to it if you want. However, I do hope that you’ll take the last paragraph at heart & do some research around them – there’s a good bunch of bands who can elicit the same sensation as Eagles, but with the drive to do anything they can to make their music sound fresh for all.