After Sept. 11, 2001, it became somewhat cliché for rockers to shed their skin and become something they previously were not. Three Doors Down, for example, recently cashed in on America’s new-found extreme patriotism by advertising the fact that the band played shows at military installations, using footage from the gigs to boost their generic new hard-rock single.
But for more artistic souls, a certain catalyst is sometimes needed to unlock their full potential. Jesse Malin has managed to switch musical gears without stripping his aesthetic spirit, and in doing so he has released what will become one of this year’s most important albums.
Jesse Malin used to be a glam-punk prince. Although his underground phenom bands, D-Generation and Bellvue, won critical success, they failed to receive the recognition and radio play they deserved, keeping Malin’s lyrical concentricity and melodic sensibilities a scene secret.
But after a rash of solo shows, Jesse drafted a musical ally in Ryan Adams. Adams’ influence (he produced and played guitar) is heard on the record, and his Midas touch will not hurt Malin’s exposure. However, Adams in no way dictates The Fine Art of Self Destruction. It is clear that Malin has made his own album.
Malin is in love with New York City, punk rock and folk tragedy with an alt-country twang. Mid-way through Self Destruction on “Solitaire,” Malin repeats the line, “I don’t need anyone.” He whispers this phrase and he screams it (the one time his voice takes on the harsh rasping that D-Generation fans had long ago adored) as he argues with himself.
He is grasping to understand the future and the present and to gain the strength to open himself up to anyone, to abandon his self-inflicted solitude.
On the next track, “Almost Grown,” Malin again grieves over his loneliness. But this time his chorus is accompanied by female vocals, and his autobiographical lyrics (again very reminiscent of D-Gen) let the listener realize that the song is about an angst-ridden past, which is a much less horrifying proposition than the lonely, hopeless future presented to us in “Solitude.”
On the album’s opener, “Queen of the Underworld,” Malin boldly suggests, “You say you want a revolution / Something you can touch / Like an age-old contradiction with alcohol and lust.” Gentle keys support tidy acoustic guitars until sharp backbeat electrics crescendo into the chorus about a lost love from long ago.
Adams had Malin complete most of the album’s vocals in one take, leaving most songs refreshingly jagged and sometimes whiney. This approach retains much of Malin’s musical grimness and keeps the album from sounding over-produced.
Songs like “Wendy,” the album’s poppiest gem, come off with punk ferocity while never letting distortion drown out the acoustic guitars. The track is about heartbreak; Wendy, a girl who likes “Tom Waits and the poet’s heart,” has left him, and now his “dreams are dying slowly”.
By way of a New York dream, Malin describes his city in passing as he laments another lost love in “Brooklyn (Acoustic).” He observes his neighbors as if from a passing car window on a rainy Sunday and sings, “Some have cars / Some have kids.”
But he’s only looking outward because inside, memories of his girlfriend, who “used to like the sad songs of doom and gloom,” haunt him, as he lies awake until the aching sunrise, “wonderin’ how we think of what we despise.”
Jesse Malin may have hid his New York Dolls records under the bed and started blasting Bruce Springsteen at full volume, but his punk roots will always affect his work. And it’s this fusion that makes The Fine Art of Self Destruction the best album, so far, of this year.
Grade: A
