The newest Pernice Brothers album, Live a Little, has been out for about a month now. And how is it, you ask? Perhaps the fact that it’s taken me thirty days to write an actual review is telling. Regular readers know that I’ve been looking forward to it ever since it was announced they would be returning to the same studio and producer (and string section) responsible for Joe Pernice’s two best albums, the Scud Mountain Boys’ Massachusetts and the PB’s debut, Overcome by Happiness. On paper, that sure looks promising.
In reality, though, the fact is that Joe Pernice is on the same trajectory he’s been on for most of this decade. Live a Little makes as big of a splash as his last album, Discover a Lovelier You, or the one before that, Yours, Mine, and Ours. That is to say, it’s a good record. It’s solid. The nice thing about the Pernice Brothers is that if you’ve never heard them before, you could pick any album in the bin at the record store, pop it in your stereo, and love it. For better or worse, Live a Little does nothing to argue against that compliment. It’s impossible to hate this record—but it’s also hard to love.
I seem to face the same dilemma every time Pernice puts out a new record: I’m loathe to give it a middling or poor review because he is such a good songwriter, in terms of both lyrics and craft, and he’s got such a great voice, always singing inescapable melodies. The question is: who am I writing this review for? If you’ve not heard Pernice before, or if you’ve only heard one album here or there long ago, it’s all I can do to urge you to pick up more of his records. He’s a master of his craft. But if you’re like me, this will be your tenth Pernice-penned album in about ten years. Frankly it’s nigh impossible to please me with an output like that, without taking a drastic change of course (e.g., a totally stripped down record, or all piano-based, or what have you). If Pernice is content to make a variation on the same album for the rest of his life, I’ll be content to buy it every time, though it will be less and less of an event with each passing record.
As with his previous two or three albums, Live a Little has its share of brilliant flashes. The album starts solidly but settles into a bit of samey blandness by track four. Too many songs have the same tempo and it makes the album a bit blurry. (It doesn’t help that the melody of “Somerville” is a dead lift of “Penthouse in the Woods,” from Massachusetts.) The album hits its stride in the middle, however, with the excellent “Microscopic View,” “B. H. Johnson,” and “PCH One” (the latter two easily ranking among his best work). Unfortunately it settles back into rote Pernice by the final third. The last four or five songs all feel interchangeable, and the album doesn’t really seem to reach any sort of natural conclusion. Worst of all, the closer is a reworking of “Grudge Fuck”—the highlight of Massachusetts, if not of Pernice’s entire body of work. This new version is bloated with strings, revised (and additional) wanky guitar solos, and loads of backing vocals. All the depth of the lyrics, about a stoned loser calling on an ex-girlfriend, are lost beneath the new glossy sheen. I’ve long suspected Pernice had gotten too comfortable with the current Pernice Brothers incarnation, but this track is the first time I’ve ever questioned whether he’s lost his way altogether.
Long ago, a friend of mine said of Elliott Smith that he would always buy a new Smith record no matter what, simply because Smith made his brilliant self-titled album. A work of such genius deserved life-long loyalty. I feel the same way about Pernice, personally. His early records hit me so hard when I first heard them that it was all I listened to for at least a year straight, and I’ve never tired of them all these years later. I’ve got my “Joe Pernice” playlist on my iTunes, where I dump every one of his albums. There are about 115 songs in there, with maybe two or three deselected. I just hit that shuffle button and I’m good to go for the rest of the day. That’s all well and good, but is it enough? I will always buy Pernice’s albums, I will always like Pernice’s albums—but will I ever be blown away again? Not this time, no, but maybe next time.
