Romper’s new record manages to be political without being preachy. Bolstered in its indie-pop style by touches of garage rock and dark, Modern Lovers-esque disjointed melodies, “Sifting Through the Rubble” is a breezy but occasionally chunky tour of cowardice and surrender, personal and political. That isn’t to say that their insights are all that original: evil corporations, pod people, slaves hypnotized by media, etc…Yet the fact that some are willing to keep crying out in the cultural wilderness is comforting.
Comfort would turn to nausea if the music wasn’t good and the lyrics were preachy. Fortunately, Romper supply plenty of hooks, and lyrics that are jaundiced and darkly humorous rather than self-righteous. Message songs like “The 99,” “Corporation Nation” and “Sifting Through the Rubble” are propelled by tasty guitar lines and subtle but insistent grooves. Songs of a more personal apocalypse, like “Road to Ruin,” Little Ball of Hate” and “In the Neighborhood” are similarly rescued from bathos with humor and a strong rock ethic.
Bay Area’s Romper (predominately shepherded by guitarist/write Paul Freeman) debut with a record that tells us that all is lost and most of us are too self-absorbed or stupid to know it. Right On! “Sifting Through the Rubble” is jaded, arch and, given the totality of its sense that we are all fucked, funny. Is it possible to love and hate your own demise? Romper offers clues.
