Albums by this artist

American Football (2000)

American Football

American Football

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» MARK T.R. DONOHUE | STAFF WRITER

American Football American Football Polyvinyl, 2000 RiYL: Joan Of Arc, Sunny Day Real Estate, Sam Prekop, Jim O'Rourke

When Mike Kinsella was in Cap'n Jazz, he was paying attention. Playing drums in a fast and loud band is not necessarily an intellectual activity, but clearly, Kinsella didn't pay any notice to those "stupid drummer" jokes. Actually, he squinted, took notes, dropped in a lead vocal when necessary ("Hey Ma, Do I Have To Choke On These") and planned his revenge for all the zine articles about how smart his snotty little brother Tim was.

In between those giant Cap'n sheets of guitar, Mike figured out, were smaller parts of chords called "notes." When played one at a time, these notes can actually be quite pretty. Even more so when maybe one guitar plays a couple of "notes" and the other plays some other, different ones. Sounds kind of pretty, if you know what you're doing.

To that end, American Football is Cap'n Jazz broken into individual components, with the tempos slowed and the distortion switched off so that the focus is on the melodies rather than simply guitar mass. The result is a record that's a perfect soundtrack for a stroll right after a rain, a big cup of hot cocoa or just a good cry.

"Never Meant" begins things on the right foot, with chiming six-strings and locked-groove drumming recalling nothing more than Adventure-period Television. Kinsella's vocals aren't exactly distinguished, but they're effective within the larger structure of what his band is attempting. Occasionally his lyrics reach into the self-pitying notebook-margin variety, but whenever the words slip, the music is more than up to task.

"Honestly?" neatly contrasts its confidence-crisis storyline with a supremely self-assured circling guitar bridge. The trumpet and loop-like bass of "For Sure" suggests that the second side of brother Tim's Live In Chicago, 1999 impressed Mike mightily, but the lyrics are plaintive in a way the extroverted Kinsella wouldn't even consider.

Unfailingly pretty, well-played, and tangibly vulnerable in a way ironically few "emo" bands ever leave themselves, American Football is an impressive debut album. It could use a few scene breaks to jar the listener out of the endless guitar lull, but taken track-by-track, it's a fine collection of songs.

MARK T.R. DONOHUE | Mark T.R. Donohue is a prolific freelance writer whose areas of expertise include Rockies baseball, video games, genre television, English soccer, and pub rock. He lives in Colorado, where he cultivates the largest and creepiest private collection of Alyson Hannigan memorabilia in the Mountain West.