The Lean Years Tradition is a progress report on Five Minute Walk Records' premier band's dues-paying journey. "Hang You Upside Down" sums up the reward for all this hard work: "Underneath the weight of everything we're turning black coals into diamonds and we're sifting through the remains and picking out the pearls when we find them." Those pearls include being "Scarred but Smarter," thanks to relationship-inflicted wounds; discovering the horrors of night life on a German street called "Reeperbahn;" and the healing and reconciliation a "Suture" can offer. Lyricist and lead singer Jeremy Post is cautionary about the power of creativity in "Encore": "Sometimes the pen cuts deeper than the sword and what's been repressed comes back for an encore." This revelatory ability is especially evident in the disturbing psychological explorations of "Anonymous F."
The writing on this CD is so compelling that it's really a poetry slam, but the auditory assault of this modern rock band is as strong as ever. John Askew and producer Bruce Winter join the trio in the studio for extra guitar and vocal oomph while new drummer, Erick Herzog, reinforces the rhythmic foundation. The result is the same as the live sound the trio cranks out in concert.
"Weathervanes" hints at an explanation for the name and personnel changes that recently transformed Black Eyed Sceva into Model Engine. "A black-eyed bruise/ a severed connection/ the fire that burned the bridge was born of constant friction/ whittled down and ground to dust/ the link between the two extremes was given up for lost. We three weathervanes are feeling the winds to different degrees." Model Engine still catches enough of that wind to keep their tradition of thoughtful, quality rock alive.
4 tocks
Other coverage for this album
7ball #14Reviewed by Bruce A. BrownEvery now and then, it's good for a critic to have to pull out a dictionary when writing a review--not for the sake of putting high falootin' words into the text, but for making sure you know what the artist is saying. Model Engine (formerly known as Black Eyed Sceva) frontman Jeremy Post is a guy with a lot to say and he often doesn't express himself in ways you've heard before. Over the past…The Phantom Tollbooth 1997Reviewed by Steven S. BaldwinWith The Lean Years Tradition, Model Engine manages to maintain a perfect blend of poetic lyricism and pop appeal with their powerful playing. No mean feat. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: They play modern rock and roll like a battered old Fifties pickup truck tooling down the highway at top speed with chicken coops rattling around in the bed. There is an appealing sense of reckless…Similar sounding releases
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