Quasi, as every good student of Latin knows, means “resembling” or “not quite” or “in some sense or degree.” American Gong is a quasi-album by all of these definitions. Their sound is not quite like the sound of any other band (although it resembles many other bands). And American Gong is only in some sense or degree a decent album.
Quasi is a band who, when you hear them for the first time, you swear they sound exactly like some other band (the members of Quasi have played with Sleater-Kinney and Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks—it’s hard not to hear their influences). But after listening to them for a while, you realize that the band they most sound like is Quasi. They’ve been around a while and have a right to their own sound. But sounding like Quasi is not always a good thing.
The only really good songs on this album are the first two—“Repulsion” and “Little White Horse.” Here, Quasi let the guitars do the talking, and the lyrics are more or less drowned out by driving beat and pounding drums. We don’t care that a line in “Little White Horse” is “blah blah blah.” We’re too busy enjoying ourselves. But when Quasi departs from this formula, and slow things down, or try to be lyrically deep, the results are unfortunate. Problems emerge when you can actually hear and process the lyrics. If “Bye Bye Blackbird” is supposed to be some searching commentary how Americans rack up too much credit card debt (“snakes and lizards are sucking up the gold; chrome-plated plastic they give you in return; to teach you a lesson you shouldn’t have to learn”), it was lost on this reviewer. It’s nice to have a political edge, but remember that we came for the music. (An online story featuring an interview with Quasi’s drummer Janet Weiss reports without apparent irony that, “Topics covered [in Quasi’s lyrics] are male female relationships, animal rights, and the monotony of everyday life and grind and the terrors that come from a lackadaisical perspective on life.” This makes a Quasi concert sound like some lefty self-help weekend.)
Many songs have a cast-off quality, a throw-away, “this sounds like a good idea” kind of feel—one of the songs is called “Now What” and one gets the sense that at that point in the album, the band was just searching for filler. “The Jig Is Up” doesn’t survive past its first line. “Death Is Not the End” drags on and on. “Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler” sounds like a dirge. And the last track, “Howler,” is simply a dog howling. I want my money back on that one. Note to Quasi: if you’re going to make a dog howling a separate track on an album, at least make it a hidden track. Give us the sense of discovering that dog.
On the rest of the album, only “Rockabilly Party” manages to stand up to repeated listens, and the melody makes us forget the pseudo-profound lyrics (“there ain’t none so blind as those who will not see”). But you can’t escape the fact that it’s mostly a silly, fun song, albeit not as good as Quasi are capable of creating.
Quasi are probably a great opening band—and they’ve opened for an impressive list of musicians (Elliot Smith and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists among others). YouTube testifies to the fact that they’d be great to see live. But American Gong feels like an opening band record. You hear a few songs, and you’re ready to move on to the main act. They’re not annoying, and you might remark to the person standing next to you at the concert that they’re pretty good. But you didn’t come to see them, and so you’re not really interested in them. You’re only, well, quasi-interested.
Track List:
1. Repulsion
2. Little White Horse
3. Everything and Nothing at All
4. Bye Bye Blackbird
5. The Jig Is Up
6. Black Dogs and Bubbles
7. Death Is Not the End
8. Rockabilly Party
9. Now What
10. Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler
11. Howler
