The Hempsteadys - On The Undercard
There's been a wave of online ska that's happier, gayer, and more organ-centric that calls itself "new tone". This isn't that, but it's more than just eight white dads with tattoos playing ska and smoking legal weed. The Hempsteadys are physical, visceral. Grounded. I discovered the Hempsteadys when looking up Connecticut-based bands, saw the music video for "Still Life With Woodpecker", and was hooked. It's a nearly-perfect heartland rock song, coming off a great ska record that I have on vinyl. I was a little worried about On The Undercard, to be honest. Their non-album single, "Golden Tooth", felt low-effort and flat. I wanted them to lean into the things that the other ska bands weren't doing, blending ska, surf, and pre-landfill indie rock.
The first three songs proudly show off that blend. "Rats" is an uptempo, beachy number that prominently shows off the vocal blend of the band. Andrew Carey is the primary melodic vocalist and rhythm guitarist, his voice rough with tar and years of punk rock. N.M.E. The Illest's hype and chanting charge the songs with positive energy. On other songs, Jordan Harrelson, the lead guitarist, also sings harmonies. "Russian Kola" starts out like a ska number, but morphs into something more 00's indie rock in the choruses. "East River" is a dramatic, minor key reggae rock song that contrasts thin, modulating guitar leads with gnarly saxophone soli. The throughline here is the glamorously-unglamorous white trash life on and under the influence of the silver screen. More than about boxing, On The Undercard is about film. "Rats" proposes the singer and his friends stick together and form a "pack". The protagonist of "Russian Kola" spends time "on the maginot line/searching for an anchor/lucky strikes and wine" and falls in love with a Russian spy. "East River" describes a mob hit from the perspective of the assassin and the target. This is a fantasy record.
The Hempsteadys struggle to maintain the infectious energy of the first three songs throughout the rest of the album. "Real Life" drops the pretense of ska entirely, sounding more like a scrapped R.E.M. waltz. "666" is a dumb and catchy song about summoning demons in a middle school bathroom. Flipping the metaphorical disc brings us "Lucille" which sounds like if Cold Chisel was from Connecticut. Simple and tight. The title track "On the Undercard" is a brassy heartland rock track, comparing the life of a journeyman boxer to that of a journeyman band, and probably has the best lyrics on the record. I would have loved a lyric booklet along with the CD so that I could follow the dense, symbol-filled songs a bit closer. Times are tough for independent bands, so I get why there wasn't one. "Nihilist" is as close as the Hempsteadys get to writing an Arcade Fire song. The ominous textures of scratching strings at the beginning coalesce into intelligibility as the song goes on. Closing track "Hold The Closer" kind of exists as a companion song to "On the Undercard." It's kind of weak, with a lazy sax solo and wordy lyrics about growing from a thieving street hustler to an honest circus performer. The bombastic chorus and repetitive, outro give it some much-needed energy.
I noticed that Hempsteadys let Patrick Slattery and Jim Lockett loose more on On The Undercard than they did on Seance! Seance!, their previous album. Slattery's alto tone is bright, clean, and smooth, like the hood of a classic car; his Bari tone roars like its engine. Lockett is more often supporting Slattery rather than taking solos, but his sound melds perfectly with the organ and the overdubbed saxophones. The production on this thing is also a step up from a lot of rock bands that use horns. They manage to fit all eight members' instruments in without crowding the sonic field and still find room for little bits of sonic candy, some glockenspiel on "Russian Kola", the palm-muted chugs on "Nihilist", the high harmonies on "On the Undercard". Overall, the only real fat on the record are the two bonus tracks. One is a reprise of the Hold the Closer outro, the other is just 666 with an AM radio filter thrown on it.
On The Undercard compares favorably to trite, aestheticized, music-about-movies albums like Ice Nine Kills' The Silver Screen. For one, the Hempsteadys not slaves to literal plot points from literal movies. They use those images as ways to explore real human emotions. "Cities have changed, opponents, the stage/the lockers, the wage (if we even got paid)/oh it's the smell in the air you can only find there/from the crowd as they yell 'knock em out!'", they lament on the loosely Rocky-themed "On the Undercard". What is life as a band from New London, Connecticut like, if not a mad scramble to even get onto the undercard? A playlist feature or a podcast guest slot, endless brass rings dangled by pay to play promoters from New York and Providence, a dead scene in Hartford and a young scene in New Haven that's exploring sounds that don't resonate with you. On The Undercard is a solid package from a band that I hope I get to see live one day.