The Meat of Life

I thought Clem Snide was over. Everyone thought Clem Snide was over. Then they returned last year with a new record, Hungry Bird, which was actually recorded years earlier. The album, notably more mellow and less accessible than the band’s past work, wasn’t exactly the perfect comeback record. The band seventh proper record, the just released The Meat of Life, however, is a great comeback record. It reminds of the band’s glory days, even hitting some new highs in the deep Snide catalog. 

Sure, the Pitchforks out there aren’t going to like Meat. Those sorts of media outlets (and I suppose most of these new blog sites) want everything to be new and radical and groundbreaking. Simply doing what you do at the top of your game doesn’t matter any more, not to this Internet generation of Wikipedia-obsessed college sophomore journalists who know everything but history. That there has never been anyone quite like Snide frontman Eef Barzelay in the history of rock doesn’t matter any more. That Barzelay is working at the top of his game again, however, does matter – to fans, that is. Simply put, Meat is the best batch of new Barzelay songs since the third Snide record, the untouchable The Ghost of Fashion, even registering as maybe their most consistent and approachable record yet.

Opener “Wal-Mart Parking Lot” is an instant hoot, opening with the kind of memorable lyric only Barzelay would come up with: “Punched in the heart, in the throat , in the knee cap too / That’s how it felt when you told me we were through / So I drove all night until I found that spot / Sunrise in a Wal-Mart parking lot can be so beautiful.” Barzelay’s writing is funny in the same way a Wes Anderson movie tickles (meaning that it’s not for everyone and might take a few passes to fully appreciate). The track gets right down to it, rocking with Snide’s usual post-Americana jangle, full of strange and endearing desperation.

And that really has always been the trick for this band: strange desperation. Barzelay’s writing and, even more so, his voice is both warm and broken. He’s so sly and funny, hopeful and upset. He’s the sad clown of sad clowns, inserting jokes into his heartbreak as if he couldn’t otherwise finish the lyric. And, damn, all these years later and it still works. Better than ever, even. It works so well that, as Barzelay’s voice fell from the speaker on my first spin of Meat, I felt like I was talking to an old friend. He has, even when not on his game, affected me deeply. He’s the lost brother your root for no matter what, always hoping others will join him as he wanders through life, hoping everything will be okay. He’s Charlie Brown, all grown up and over his punk rock phase, now armed with a book, a guitar and a pack of American Spirits.

But enough about our friend Eef; let’s talk songs. Clem Snide has never been short on ideas. Like the Stones, they keep finding ways to create original songs using a limited palate. Nothing wrong with that. We see Barzelay’s sense of humor at it’s most subtle on “I Got High,” where he sings “I got high with Sufjan Stevens fans in normal Illinois,” purposefully mispronouncing both “Sufjan” and “Illinois.” He continues with the snide lyric “this song goes out to all you beautiful American girls and boys,” in doing so nodding to the fact that his band is no longer on young America’s fickle radar. “Stoney” starts out a little awkward before turning into a heavy hitter (with an instantly memorable chorus) that could surely be the band’s breakthrough song, had they not already had that chance years ago with “Moment in the Sun.” The record’s title track, too, is a new Clem classic, sounding like it could’ve easily fit on End of Love’s tracklist.

My favorites? All of ‘em. No kidding. When recently guesting on a radio show I had to pick a Meat song to play. Couldn’t do it. I wanted to play big rocker “BFF” but didn’t feel it represented the band or album accurately enough; I wanted to play the sweet and uber-emotional “Please” but didn’t want the radio hosts to give me noogies and wedgies; I wanted to play the whole record, save for maybe “Denise” and “Forgive Me, Love,” the albums only two not-amazing (but still totally good) tracks. I decided to go with “Song For Mary” because it reminds me most of the band’s breakthrough record, 1999’s Your Favorite Music. But, really, every song on this, maybe their best record yet, is worth the repeat button treatment, even if it takes you a few spins to get there.   8.5/10

Written by G. William Locke