American Music Club - Love Songs For Patriots

Genre rock Publisher Merge Records External Links Merge Records

"Ladies and gentlemen, it's time," Mark Eitzel calls out like a lounge act carnival conductor on the opening track of American Music Club's reemergence from a ten-year hiatus, Love Songs For Patriots. The muffled mega-phone announcement will grab the attention of long time American Music Club fans clutching for any kind of new material from them. It will go largely unnoticed outside of the immediate fan base as the album comes off as a large yawn of uninspired filler tracks. The few semi-decent songs are stacked at the top.

"Ladies and Gentleman" is okay for an opener, leading into the Collective Soul mimic of "Another Morning", which is the only time AMC play anything near ready for FM radio play. "Patriot's Heart" has moments that may pique one's interest, perhaps only for the shock-jock opening line of, "If you wanna see something patriotic, there's a stripper," which turns into a piano ode to a male whorehouse stud that will make your skin shiver on first listen but is ultimately harmless.

Okay start. But the rest of the album quickly falls flat as songs like "Love Is" and "Job To Do" wind up on the most treacherous back to back listen of the year list. The long drawl whines, lyrical vagaries, and organic atmosphere press on the keyboard during "Love Is" will immediately have the listener leaning toward the skip button right into "Job To Do" where things don't get much better. As Eitzel dully stretches out the impassionate chorus line "everybody has a job to do" on the song.

The lyrical balance is uneven throughout. On some songs the words seem tissue paper thin while on others the lyric stock relies heavily on story track. The previously mentioned "Patriots Heart," and "Mantovani the Mind Reader" are strong on imagery but sink on word play, where any value behind them is lost inside of Eitzel's head. One must struggle with what these songs are attempting to get at; there are more than a few individual references to the state of the US on "Patriot's Heart," "America Loves the Minstrel Show," and "Song Of The Rats Leaving The Sinking Ship" but collectively this album fails to ring any kind of connecting theme lyrically or musically.

Some good passages, fleeting moments though they may be, do shine through, such as on "Myopic Books" where Eitzel references Saul Bellow and Dinosaur Jr. Or on "Your Horseshoe Wreath In Bloom," which features the best attempt at a chorus and backbeat with Eitzel and AMC singing, "If you buy lottery tickets you will win someday. A pile of dead scratches with the gold and silver scratched away."

The songs on Love Song For Patriots lack any kind of repeat value. They don't have that stick in your mind appeal, mostly due to the bereft of choruses. They fail at any deep emotional connection or fire in your belly reaction to the lyrics or music, mostly because the album feels as if filled with half thoughts and incomplete tracks. The whole affair sounds more like a B-Sides collection rather than a comeback album.