LP4 is a huge hurdle for The Menzingers. Whenever a band goes up against themselves, it’s an enormous test of their staying power and ability to grow within their own sound. The popularity and cult-like adoration surrounding 2012’s On The Impossible Past makes it obvious that The Menzingers are The Menzingers’ biggest competitors when it comes to Rented World, as the questions surrounding this release view it pointedly as a “follow-up,” and whether that follow-up could possibly meet lofty expectations. 

This is fair and unfair for the Scranton, PA quartet. When I reviewed Transit’s Young New England, and completely trashed that album, I wrote that the band had set a standard for excellence in the past – a standard that I held them to with their new work. The Menzingers are in exactly the same boat. At the same time, it’s daunting to give an encore to an album as holistically spectacular and sweeping in nature as the Americana-tinged, story-telling punk rock that Impossible Past offered us; as vocalist and guitarist Greg Barnett explained to Exclaim! Magazine, “…when we first started writing, even the first note, it was like, ’Oh, where do we start?’” [Italics added for emphasis.]

I’ve been having a horrible time
Pulling myself together.
I’ve been closing my eyes to find
The old familiar failures.
I’ve been closing my eyes to find
Why all good things should fall apart.

So begins The Menzingersʼ latest record, the sweeping, driven, masterful On the Impossible Past. Those lyrics come from the opening (and essentially introductory) “Good Things,” a short song that starts calm before the guitars and vocals tumble into an avalanche of power. As we have come to expect from the band, which is following the phenomenal Chamberlain Waits, anthemic sing-alongs provide a vessel for thought-provoking lyrics.

Read More “The Menzingers – On the Impossible Past”

The 2010 comedy Date Night is about a couple’s wild journey into the city one evening where they continually run into obstacle after obstacle, essentially postponing their night of innocent fun and reigniting their love in the process. The 1977 comedy The Out-of-Towners contains a similar plot, however this time around, the couple are trying to survive the manic big city while sightseeing, eventually running into a slew of wacky characters all while reigniting their love in the process. Not quite the same, but enough for a viewer of both to notice the similarities.

The same idea can often apply to music. Despite the makeup of different individuals from different backgrounds, influence always tends to seep its way into just about any band’s music. It can be a positive and a negative. Positive, because it’s easy to relate to through familiarity; negative, because it can be skewed as plagiarism. The Menzingers are certainly not being accused of blatantly ripping anyone off, but on their sophomore release, Chamberlain Waits, the influences come up frequently, and it takes a bit of the sheen off the previous buzz that has been circulating over the band for the past year or two.