Near to the Wild Heart of Life
| Near to the Wild Heart of Life | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Japandroids | ||||
| Released | January 27, 2017 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 36:49 | |||
| Label |
Anti- (Worldwide) Arts & Crafts (Canada) | |||
| Producer | Japandroids | |||
| Japandroids chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Near to the Wild Heart of Life | ||||
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Near to the Wild Heart of Life is the third studio album by the Canadian rock duo Japandroids, released on January 27, 2017 on Anti-. Described by vocalist and guitarist Brian King as the band's first attempt at making a "proper studio album," the release features a more polished aesthetic than their previous releases.[2]
With the band members living in separate cities for the first time, the album was written over the period of a year between 2014 and 2015. The recording process found the band experimenting with additional instruments and studio overdubs for the first time. The album was preceded by the singles, "Near to the Wild Heart of Life" and "No Known Drink or Drug".
Background
After touring extensively in support of the duo's second studio album, Celebration Rock (2012), Brian King and David Prowse took a break from Japandroids for six months: "When we got home, we were just totally destroyed, really burnt out both physically and mentally to the point that despite how much we love playing in the band, we just needed a break; at that point, we hadn’t taken a serious break from the band in five years. So we took about six months off - the first half of 2014 - and decided to dedicate that time to ourselves and our personal lives."[2] Reconvening after their self-imposed break, King and Prowse spent a year writing Near to the Wild Heart of Life between 2014 and 2015; starting the process in New Orleans: "We rented a house and spent about five weeks in this house with all the gear in the living room and just played every day. We hadn’t written in a long time, and it took a minute to just get the ball rolling again."[3]
The duo entered to studio in late 2015 to begin recording the album.[2] The band attribute waiting to work with record producer Peter Katis as one of the primary reasons for the album's delayed release: "We really wanted Peter Katis, who’s well known for working with bands like The National and Interpol, to mix our record so we had a little waiting around to be able to work with him."[2]
Recording
The album features a more polished aesthetic in comparison to its predecessors Post-Nothing (2009) and Celebration Rock (2012). Regarding this change in sound, Brian King noted, "When we started the band ten years ago, we were really into a lot of raw and live sounding records by garage rock bands where the record sounded like you were going to a show. That’s the kind of band we wanted to start and that's the kind of records we wanted to make. I think when we finished Celebration Rock, we felt like we’d achieved that."[2] The band implemented the use of studio overdubs more so than in the past, and introduced new instruments including bass guitar, acoustic guitar and synthesizers: "We didn't worry about it sounding live or only performing the songs in a way exactly like we would on stage; we worried about the whole live performance elements afterward. And that’s uncharted territory for us."[2] Drummer David Prowse attributes the band's change in direction to the amount of time it took to record the album: "We wanted to make a more sonically diverse record as well. Exploring different sounds and not having it just be, like, okay Brian sets up his pedals in exactly this way, plugs in and the guitar sound is static and all those things that we’ve done in the past. We were very interested in doing something different, but at the same time we didn’t have a clear idea of how we were going to do that. And that’s part of what took time."[3]
The release keeps the band's tradition of featuring eight tracks on their studio albums, with Brian King noting, "We did actually try to do more songs this time. It wasn’t like, 'Oh we’ll just do eight again.' We wrote more songs and recorded more songs, and when it came down to putting it together again, it was just kind of the same thing. You take one off there and another one off there and it just kind of glues itself together in a way where it is just a better listen start to finish."[3]
Writing and composition
King and Prowse both lived in separate cities for the first time during the overall writing process, and would send each song ideas via Dropbox: "It was a pretty profound change for both of us and the band was just basically forced to figure out a new way of writing. [...] We would spend time apart and be communicating via email and stuff like that, then meeting in whatever city we decided to work on it and put it together. A very, very different writing style than our first two records."[3]
Vocalist and guitarist Brian King was heavily influenced by the works of Tom Waits while writing and recording Near to the Wild Heart of Life: "So for me, by far the artist I've listened to most in the last two years is Tom Waits which you probably wouldn’t associate with influencing Japandroids. He's got a really big discography and I got really into them so feel like they were especially quite influential to me lyrically and thematically. When you're listening to great songwriters who know how to build a story and have characters in songs that you care about, you can’t help but be influenced by it and I definitely noticed a shift in the way I wrote lyrics on this record. That artist played a really big role in that."[2]
Regarding the lyrical content of the album's second track, "North East South West", King noted, "Between those four years on Celebration Rock we traveled the world. We went to a lot of places. We met a lot of people. We had a lot of experiences. Instead of making an album about that, which I kind of did on Celebration Rock, I thought I’m just going to condense it all as best I can into one song. That’s what that song is. It’s almost getting that part of my writing out of that way. The rest of the album is based in the present."[3] The album's shortest track, "I'm Sorry (For Not Finding You Sooner)", was initially planned as an interlude to be sequenced later in the album: "I mean when we first talked about that song... it wasn’t even meant to be a song. It was more like an interlude, or I don’t know what you call those things, like the very short two-minute piece sandwiched between the longer piece. It was just a bridge or breather on the album. That’s what it was meant to be, which was why it was built around an alternating guitar part, one set of lyrics, and one simple theme. When Dave added the drums, it kind of began to take on like a new life."[3]
Release
For the release of Near to the Wild Heart of Life, Japandroids switched labels from Polyvinyl to Anti-, after meeting one of Anti-'s staff members while writing in New Orleans. Regarding the move, King stated, "We really love Polyvinyl and they were very, very good to us. That was a very hard decision to make to move to Anti-, or not so much move to Anti- but to not be with Polyvinyl anymore. When the opportunity arose to be on a label like Anti-, you just look at the roster they have and the length of time that artists stay on that label, and all the success that the artists have had... you look at Tom Waits or Neko Case or you know Nick Cave was on it at one time. It’s just really hard to say no to that. It was very exciting for us. They’re the biggest label we’ve been on by far. They seem to share the kind of philosophy about how to negotiate art and commerce in a way that we can understand and agree with and still have complete creative control."[3]
Reception
Critical reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 79/100[4] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    [5] |
| The A.V. Club | A-[6] |
| The Guardian | [7] |
| Pitchfork | 7.1/10[8] |
| Rolling Stone | [9] |
| Tiny Mix Tapes |    [1] |
Near to the Wild Heart of Life received mostly positive reviews from contemporary music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 79, based on 32 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".[4]
In a mostly positive review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised Japandroids' decision to expand upon their sound: "Near to the Wild Heart of Life contains a few new production flourishes, particularly a hint of synthesizers, which means that it sounds even bigger than Celebration Rock, but that should've been expected, too, from these students of rock & roll. Bands usually swing for the fences on their third album and that's precisely what Japandroids do here."[5] In another positive review for Rolling Stone, Will Hermes praises drummer David Prowse's contributions and the album's anthemic nature: "With guitars soaring and grooves accelerating, the words feel undeniable, and you know that when you hear 'em in a club – or theater, or arena – you'll be bouncing off the walls, shouting every word."[9] Similarly, Kate Hutchinson wrote in The Guardian: "Their third album, is so luxuriously gnarled it roars out of the speakers like the Revenant bear. The duo have nailed the art of the crunching, life-affirming crescendo. [...] Their whoa-oh refrains will slay at festivals this summer. Feelings sound so good cranked up to 11."[7] In another positive review, The A.V. Club's Kyle Ryan praised the band's ability to remain idiosyncratic while expanding on its aesthetic: "Near To The Wild Heart Of Life remains a Japandroids album — even with "Arc Of Bar" riding washes of synthesizers for seven and a half minutes at the halfway point. The band has expanded its sound while hewing close to what it does best."[6]
In a mixed review for Pitchfork, Matthew Ramirez noted, "Perhaps it’s age, experience, a new record label, the inevitable artistic instinct to want to switch things up a little, but whatever the reason, Near to the Wild Heart of Life ultimately lacks the urgency of the band’s best music. The tower hasn’t collapsed, but it’s starting to wobble."[8] In a negative review for Tiny Mix Tapes, writer S. David said, "The energy imparted simply can’t overcome a drowning of influences, or rather, the kinetic is overcome by the potential. Japandroids have always courted classic-cum-punk signification and appraisal, and it seems they haven’t moved past their eager acceptance of those overtures."[1]
Track listing
All tracks written by Japandroids.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Near to the Wild Heart of Life" | 4:57 |
| 2. | "North East South West" | 4:21 |
| 3. | "True Love and a Free Life of Free Will" | 4:27 |
| 4. | "I'm Sorry (For Not Finding You Sooner)" | 2:29 |
| 5. | "Arc of Bar" | 7:25 |
| 6. | "Midnight to Morning" | 4:44 |
| 7. | "No Known Drink or Drug" | 3:12 |
| 8. | "In a Body Like a Grave" | 5:14 |
Charts
| Chart (2017) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Scottish Albums (OCC)[10] | 90 |
| US Billboard 200[11] | 76 |
References
- 1 2 3 David, S. (7 February 2017). "Japandroids - Near to the Wild Heart of Life". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved 20 February 2017.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Stolworthy, Jacob (1 February 2017). "Japandroids interview: 'This new record is our first attempt at making a proper studio album'". The Independent. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Tedder, Michael (2 November 2016). "Q&A: Japandroids Remain On Brand With Near To The Wild Heart Of Life". Stereogum. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
- 1 2 "Reviews for Near to the Wild Heart of Life by Japandroids". Metacritic. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
- 1 2 Thomas Erlewine, Stephen (27 January 2017). "Near to the Wild Heart of Life - Japandroids". AllMusic. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
- 1 2 Ryan, Kyle (27 January 2017). "Japandroids stretch but don’t stray on lovesick third album". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
- 1 2 Hutchinson, Kate (2 February 2017). "Japandroids: Near to the Wild Heart of Life review – emo-rock for grownups". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
- 1 2 Ramirez, Matthew (24 January 2017). "Japandroids: Near to the Wild Heart of Life". Pitchfork. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
- 1 2 Hermes, Will (26 January 2017). "Review: Punkers Japandroids Reveal Their Classic Rock Side on Third LP". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
- ↑ "Official Scottish Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
- ↑ "Japandroids – Chart history" Billboard 200 for Japandroids. Retrieved February 7, 2017.