Party Pooper (The Birthday - Come Together)

The Birthday - Come Together

why you'll love it - A hard hitting rock album

why you'll hate it - Lacking the energy and creativity of previous works.

You wouldn’t know it from this album, but The Birthday has been around for a while.  They know rock music.  Frontman, Chiba Yusuke, has been around even longer than that.  Most noteworthy as leading Thee Michelle Gun Elephant, Yusuke is comfortably referred to as a god-damned punk rock legend.  So why is Come Together so flaccid?  You’ve got me.

This is the record I was expecting three years ago.  The Birthday began as a retro classic rock band.  With a lineup change, they were left with much less soul.  Despite falling into more generic sound, talent prevailed, and The Birthday has been sailing smoothly with two more incredible albums.  If I were to continue this metaphor…. I wouldn’t call Come Together a shipwreck.  It’s a well produced rock and roll album, with a few highlights.  Perhaps, “adrift without a sail” would be more apt.

Come Together essentially feels like a b-sides album.  “くそったれの世界” is a serviceable radio-friendly single, with a good chorus.  It’s nothing special, but the next 15 minutes spend what goodwill it had.  What stands out on Come Together is a loud, aggressive sound with no real bite to it.  This comes off as an incredible insult, given how much reputation this band has; but the composition of these songs feel amateurish.  Like high schoolers in their garage.  “Love God Hand” and “Pierrot” are the greatest offenders of this.  Especially “Pierrot”.  I honestly could not believe this plodding, lunkheaded, Ozzefest sounding chunky mess was a Chiba Yusuke joint.

The best moments of Come Together come in the form of slower songs.  At first I overlooked these, in my frustrating effort to find a great song on this album that actually rocks.  I had also not given these songs that much credit because I felt, without Imai Akinobu (who left the band in 2010), they just didn’t have the swag to do a nice bluesy song anymore.  After repeated listens, songs like “星に願いを” and “Lemon” are clearly the most impressive on here.  These have great atmosphere.  Between these songs, and the cut b-side “Star Man”, I would have been much more happy with an EP of songs like this, than an LP with a bunch of duds.

I LOVE this band.  I want to recommend them to everyone that enjoys rock music.  Even a boring Birthday album is better than something like the embarrassing Foo Fighters album that came out this year.  If you're itching for straightforward rock music this year, Come Together may be your fix; but if this is your first taste of The Birthday, PLEASE look into their other stuff.