Review: The Lawrence Arms confront adulthood on Metropole

“I blinked twice, and twenty years went by.” Rarely has a cliché come across so earnestly, but on Metropole, Brendan Kelly’s revealed longings, even the fairly pitiful ones, are sympathetic. The record itself is a testament to the fleeting aspects of adulthood. Fatherhood, husbandhood, relocation and work all rearranged the priorities of the long-running punk rock band, and it’s now been nearly eight years since The Lawrence Arms released its last full-length. As Kelly might put it, less than the blink of an eye.

Each member of the trio has since devoted his creative energies to various side projects. Guitarist Chris McCaughan released three solo, acoustic full-lengths under the name Sundowner. Kelly dabbled in the short-lived The Falcon with Alkaline Trio’s Dan Andriano, and more recently released his own eclectic LP as Brendan Kelly and the Wandering Birds. Neil Hennessey, meanwhile, joined The Smoking Popes, in addition to having played drums for a dozen or so other bands.

Metropole, then, isn’t exactly a return from inactivity and reclusiveness — midway through the hiatus, the band found the time to release an EP and live DVD, after all — but it’s an accomplishment nonetheless, a revelation that The Lawrence Arms is as meaningful and important to its members as it is to its very patient fans.

Metropole is a seamless followup to 2006’s Oh! Calcutta!. And while the album is unmistakably their own, an evolved sense of maturity permeates. Oh! Calcutta! was a youthful, free-spirited celebration of life. Metropole is the more resigned realization that with age comes white hair and adult responsibilities. This isn’t a cynical album, but The Lawrence Arms are reflective and honest about the implications of growing older, unlike contemporary peers who paint themselves as eligible young bachelors well into their late thirties.

Photo by Ben Pier.

Metropole is a gold mine of newfound vulnerability. On “Seventeener (17th and 37th),” Kelly pensively sings about his perceived decline in physical attractiveness (“The girls that used to smile at me just stared off straight ahead or looked down at their feet”). And on the collaborative title track, Kelly apologizes to his mother for falling out of touch before he and McCaughan harmonically declare, “This is the end of all things.”

At one point, Kelly goes to great lengths to show a particularly pathetic image, comparing himself to a raggedy, anonymous homeless man in a YMCA bathroom. He then disparages his own work (“shitty words”), all while singing cleanly in a sincere tone to a folksy rhythm. It’s a dark and daring approach to songwriting, similar to Kelly’s work with The Wandering Birds. 

Chris McCaughan’s presence doesn’t dominate, and while his songwriting is identifiable (“Winding paths, uncertain roads, history’s remapped,” and other references to geography), it aligns thematically with Kelly’s. “October Blood” even rewords an earlier lyric of Kelly’s, but with the addition of McCaughan’s own brand of poetry.

There are recurring references to age, snow and cold throughout Metropole, which isn’t accidental. Both Kelly and McCaughan are well-read songwriters, and the deliberateness of their imagery shows not only that they are literary nerds, but that they both devoted a tremendous amount of effort into creating a cohesive, thematically uniform work.

Photo by Ben Pier.

Metropole is entirely satisfying musically. Loyal engineer Matt Allison again captures the band at its
best,with balanced harmonies and solid dynamics. The album as a whole is much less aggressive than Oh! Calcutta!, more akin to the restrained side of The Greatest Story Ever Told. Kelly’s gritty voice is less punchy but has greater power and range, and McCaughan is still capable of supplying soaring, memorable melodies (“Beautiful Things” is the kind of song whose chorus you’ll want to belt out on your second listen). Beyond that, Kelly and McCaughan still change their vocal pitch at the end of certain elongated words, and Kelly’s vocabulary still includes “dick.” Some things should never change.

I hope The Lawrence Arms are here to stay. Metropole is so consistent with the band’s standards, it’s almost as if the hiatus never happened. Never fade away, guys.

10/10