Reggie and The Full Effect is the side project of James Dewees, keyboard player for quintessential emo rockers The Get Up Kids and former drummer of the hardcore band Coalesce. Under The Tray… is his third full-length release and finds Reggie progressing at the proper musical pace.
Unfortunately, the album is weighed down by intrusive parody songs and annoying interludes of drunk people rambling at Get Up Kids shows about private school, GAP jeans and Lionel Ritchie?s dance moves.
The legend of Reggie also comes into play. Dewees? record label, Vagrant (now infamous for emo heartthrobs like Dashboard Confessional and The Alkaline Trio) would have you believe a fictitious character (Reggie) burnt down his recording studio in the late 1980s, making his master tapes a rarity and only found via bootlegging.
Every few years, these random Reggie tapes show up anonymously at the Vagrant headquarters and are compiled into a new album. This explains Reggie and the Full Effect?s love of squishy retro moog keyboards and flourishing synthesizers.
Reggie and the Full Effect?s philosophy can be tightly summed up in a verse from Under the Tray…?s opening song, ?Your Bleedin? Heart.? Dewees simultaneously disses the music biz while defending his own artistic meanderings, singing, ?Yesterday I read a letter from an editor that tells me what he thinks / How all this music is boring / Concentrating on how much this really stinks / It?s not my fault if you?re snoring.?
The song also serves as a departure from earlier efforts (the joyously random debut, Greatest Hits 1984-1987 and the insanely catchy tunes of Promotional Copy), finding Dewees? signature vocal style embedded in an ?80s metal anthem turned on to some electro-punk new-wave style. The song could easily be the emo-rock offspring of Angus Young and Debbie Harry playing Adam Ant?s ?Stand and Deliver.?
Essentially, the paradox that is Reggie and the Full Effect is a direct result of Dewees? comical nature. It serves as a way to make fun and entertaining songs without any overarching artistic concerns, but at the same time it seems to justify him avoiding continuity.
The humor of ?Mood 4 U? is an example of Dewees? parody working perfectly. The track, with its bouncing New Order synth bass and goofy faux-British accent, nails the kitsch of ?80s New Wave with the pre-chorus, ?When I smell your perfume / It spells out D-O-O-M, DOOM / And DOOM backwards is MOOD / I?m in the mood for you girl.?
Songs like ?What Won?t Kill You Eats Gas,? ?Congratulations Smack and Katy? and ?Apocalypse WOW!? are stealth-rock gems brimming with distorted guitars and common broken-heart rhyme schemes that somehow manage to sound genuine and are always humorous.
Sometimes the vocals evolve into death-metal screams, but the parody track, ?Linkin Verbs,? fails to state a relevant point (or create a listenable melody) while it rips into nu metal mainstays Linkin Park and System of a Down.
Even when Dewees cools it down for the love songs (?Image is Nothing, Lobsters are Everything? and ?Megan 2K2 (Even Though It?s 2K3 Now)?), his personality and musical skill continue to shine through a landscape of reverse percussion and pondering keyboard lines.
Under The Tray…?s true fault lies in the fact that it can?t hold a thought for more than one song at a time and tends to wear its comic self-righteousness on its sleeve. As soon as Dewees drops the show and stops trying to expand upon the myth of Reggie, he?ll make a fully accessible album of potential radio hits and charming personality.
Grade B/C
