Look Mexico
This Is Animal Music
Lujo Records
By Jose Fritz
I was there when the genre died. It was on the verge of a new century in the year 1999. Deep Elm records left New York for the cheap palmetto bug infested office spaces of South Carolina. Penfold broke up, Chris Carrabba went solo and Jimmy Eat World went emo-core. The little critter just rolled over on its back, and its legs folded up. Its tiny brown exoskeleton became stiff and then dry.
Emo-core bands enjoyed a persistence that emo did not. Emo dwindled. Some fans are still in mourning over the loss of their body glitter. Even Crank! Records slowly distanced itself. In that respect, Look Mexico is everything you need them to be: the tan sweaters, the broken chords, the ex-girlfriends, bedhead, overt empathy and the tight pants. It’s all here in a cellophane wrapped package awaiting you and your darling gray Redcap™ jackets.
I’m being a tad condescending, because I’m a cad. But in truth the band is rock solid. Matthew Agrella sings with a sweet somewhat frail voice something like the Weakerthans’ John K. Samson. The basslines break down into endearing proggy stop-and-start bursts and the lyrics are so good as to approach even Cursive in their verdure.
So strip your organs and hang them to dry,
but spare your fingers to point to the sky.
It won't be weird and it won't be silly
cause you're still intact and you look so pretty.
In 2007 their EP Crucial was very well-received, even better than their debut EP Byzantine. They’d build up some inertia, but from where? The idea of emo as a retro movement is at first absurd, but after a few listens it becomes plausible, like watching too many TV cop dramas. The situation has it’s own internal rules.
It’s actually comforting to hear the real thing, pure and clean in a time when some ignorant writers refer to Fugazi and Weezer as emo bands. But there’s a certain obsequience in returning to an old genre. Every genre has its rebirths, but those tend to degrade the integrity of the original even in its celebration.
Instead Look Mexico provides proof of life. This album could have crash landed tragically in the Ural Mountains or slithered somberly down Knox Street in Kickapoo, IL in a black hearse. But death does not diminish greatness. Think of that the next time you hear the grim reaper beat his cloak on your apartment patio at night.
|
