Less Than Jake - Pezcore (1995)

Pezcore.. Now, after hearing this album so many times over the years, I really wouldn't mind THAT being the next genre obsessively blogged about on Tumblr. I guess one would have to make that a genre first, but dammit, this is MY fantasy and you can't take that away from me.

Look, there's probably a few hundred ways I could tell you about this album, and I'll just sum it up quick: It kicks ass. The bass-playing handled by Roger Manganelli is pretty insane and mixed generally well. The catchy as hell melodies, the raw and fast nature of the music, the unapologetic expression of emotion, EVERYTHING is there that you could want from a punk rock (well, in this case, ska-punk, so get ready for some horns!) album outside of political rants. I'm not going to rant to you about what the album is musically, as much as I'd like for you to pick it up from this:

I rarely ask people to interpret music in a different way, but if you would, sit back and imagine it all as a film, where the backdrop is none other than the trashy Gainesville, Florida. "Now listen up and hear what I'm saying!" Guitarist/vocalist Chris DeMakes almost immediately yells out upon the album/film starting, as if to command you or even just to plead with you for a moment, with his choice of words (as well as all lyrics the band uses) written by drummer Vinnie Fiorello, much like Neil Peart has done for Rush. "If he's not talking to himself, he must be praying. Shine my shoes and ask for a dime, then pick my pockets while I'm in line. He keeps telling me the score down at the liquor store." He continues on, painting a picture of something the album rarely lets up on: Being insecure, socially-conscious teenagers that love to drink underage in a disgusting environment.

There's a point in your life where you look at the world around you and realize the world is so much bigger than you had previously thought: Your town is what you previously perceived as being the world. YOUR world. Not the world you assume blindly that everyone else lives, with everything being the exact same shit day after day. You analyze the people you know, the people you love, the people you've grown up with, and you begin to see all of their faults, weaknesses, and insecurities. You wonder why your friend Mike chose to leave the town you two called "home" and where he might be, what he might be doing. You wonder about the intricacies of human life, depression, and what might've been, when thinking of a suicide of a local teenager via shotgun blast that shook your community.

After all is said and done, you lay down in your bed with a beer, reminiscing of old times with good friends, as a smile is brought to your face. Suddenly, girl problems don't matter anymore, and while your next impending existential crisis could be right around the corner, you're fine. You light up a cigarette and head to the back porch, gazing upon what you can see of the city lights, before heading out to your car.

Your car, with the beer cans in the floor board of the passenger seat, and the backseat nearly covered in punk rock cassettes is a safe-haven. You reach back and pop one in at random, it doesn't matter because you love all of them like audible bibles with relatable stories that your father's record collection could never quite supply you with. This isn't his music: It's yours. After driving slowly through your town, you finally arrive at the train tracks you walk with your friends every day. You sigh and walk to them. It's an old past-time, sure, you just walked them yesterday with friends, but it's ritual.

As you reach down into your pocket for one more cigarette, you learn you're empty. "Fuck." You sigh under your breath, watching it escape into the cold air. The one thing you wanted and you can't have it. A slight anger falls upon you and you end up getting swept into a minor depression, before you remember to check your other pocket. Alas, one last cigarette! You're short on ideas as to how it got in there, but it doesn't matter. You light it, and smoke while sitting on the roof of your shitty beat-up Cadillac your father bought you when you were 16. The cold gets to be too much, and you take shelter inside of the car.

As luck, or your unfortunate lack of would have it, the car doesn't start. You're left there in the cold. You're not going to die, but damn if it isn't uncomfortable. You reach over to your glovebox and open it, hoping to find the candy bars you had stolen from the local convenience store, provided you hadn't gotten so high and eaten them without noticing before. Instead, a photo of you and your friends, straight out of highschool falls out from the glovebox. You pick it up and analyze it, to recognize it as photographic evidence of the first show you played with your friends in your band, the one where you played a raw punk rock set in someone's basement to a crowd of ten people and got absolutely wasted afterwards, despite only being 17, as a smile grows on your face.

After a few moments of reflecting, you put the key back in, and lo and behold, the car starts without issue. You take a few moments to think "What the fuck does it all matter? Why don't I just leave?" before looking back down at the photo in your lap, causing a slight internal struggle within yourself. You pull out of the parking lot and proceed to drive slowly back to your house, observing all of the unsaid beauties that make up your surroundings. The dirty streets, drug dealers on every corner, and the nonstop depression that seems to exist within the entire community, but it's your home.

The small town has won again, but something in you is fine with that. Things may never change, and you know that. This place may be a cesspool, but it's your cesspool, and you're not going to be swallowed alive by the world outside. Not today.

8/10
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Feel free to check out the song previews/buy this album using my Amazon Associate link!