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The year is coming to a close. Its final days are littered with “best of” lists from virtually every media source at all tapped into modern music. Music lovers who don’t fall victim to the vice of file sharing — or are merely fearful of losing on-campus browsing rights — are drafting their own lists for Saint Nick.
Unfortunately, it seems that these compilations will be set to print, or posted north with a criminal omission. I have decided to attempt righting this wrong and present to you Shannon and the Clams’ “I Wanna Go Home,” the best damn album you never heard this year.
“I Wanna Go Home” is the debut full-length from the ragtag Californian threesome. The first listen may make the revelation that the album is just a few months old a surprising one. The Clams’ sound is a throwback to the early days of rock and roll when the kids first started swinging their hips to “Louie Louie” and a “nickel back” was your change at the malt shop.
Rather than come across as cheap imitators without new ideas, the group thrives on their anachronisms, highlighting all that is great about true-blue rock and all that modern listeners have lost.
The Clams understand that rock and roll need not be bloated for arena-worthy anthems, nor does repetition mean bland. Energy is their weapon and they lock right on target. Guitar lines jangle with familiarity and for the most part, the percussion is about keeping the tempo up rather than making the beat overly intricate. Boy-girl vocals trade off, running through early ’60s archetypes of girl groups and doo-wop.
For all the treading through oft-traveled territory, the Clams bring a kind of punk rock abandon that is missing in their source material. For them, everything needs to be played louder and sung more fiercely than their idols ever had the gumption to.
Under this mission statement a track about leaving a party early, “You Can Come Over,” becomes badass — sexy, even — and female-led ballads such as “Surrounded by Ghosts” and “Take it Back” are given Janis Joplin treatment. They give surf rock more ramshackle treatment than it already had on “Scuffle With the Clams” and “Blast Me to Bermuda.”
It might be tempting to say the Clams’ approach is just a moderately successful case of teaching an old dog new tricks. They put any such accusations to rest by showing themselves to be expert songwriters in their own right.
The album peaks with “When You’re On,” a heartfelt ballad about the disappointment of a lover who’s only batting .500. The song is content to spend three-fifths of its short length with a continuously bellowing drum beat and hushed lamenting. In its final moments, the song explodes with the kind of emotional climax that can only be felt, and set to repeat.
Title track “I Wanna Go Home” approaches the painful realization of adulthood’s hardships that many members of the student body are presumably beginning to grapple with. Aforementioned “Take it Back” becomes a kind of dark joke when the chorus reveals it is the narrator’s love they’re asking for returned.
By the album’s close, Shannon and the Clams have proven themselves experts in hybridization. They came at the musically rich period of the early 1960s with the powerful retrospect 50 years grants you. The result is a return to a rock and roll based on simple pleasures and appreciation for subtlety with punk’s in-your-face attitude.
“I Wanna Go Home” is the total package: danceable, catchy, emotional and fun. Far from the typical snobbery and polarization of an under-the-radar release, it’s a crowd pleaser that you better hope you see in your stocking.
Bangor Daily News