Say Anything review

Say Anything
Beat Kitchen, Chicago
Friday, April 7, 2006

Over the last few years, pop punk has gotten a bad name — at best a guilty pleasure and at worst a cred-destroying scarlet letter in your iPod, bright red against a backlit screen. Which is a large part of why Say Anything are a refreshing and even important band right now. Because they avoid all the usual, if not downright obligatory, pitfalls that so many bands they could be lumped in with end up making.

Between consciously avoiding the over-earnestness that weighs down many other groups, and not taking themselves too seriously, Say Anything come across as pretense-free and unconcerned with pandering. If anything, the group are cynical and critical of the bands and fans, unafraid of alienating either group. Which actually comes across surprisingly refreshing. Thankfully, they also steer clear of the trap: writing formulaic summer songs about girls, break-ups, and living in California. (we’ll just call it Yellowcard syndrome.)

Not that Say Anything don’t sing about girls, or pull off carefree power pop. They’ve just got a much more twisted, sometimes dark, and always honest take on things that doesn’t get in the way of their music being fun as hell (especially in a live setting, where crowds are passionate about the performance and inspired into devoted sing-alongs throughout, even to cuts that criticize them in the process).

Case in point scathing scenester attack “Admit It,” just one of SA’s self-aware tunes that’s impossible not to sing along to. Much of Say Anything’s catalogue is simplistic and almost overly melodic, and in a live setting there’s not much need for innovation from recorded form. Instead the volume just goes higher and each line is felt even more. Songs like “Slowly Through A Vector” and the overly candid “Every Man Has A Molly” are the more impossible not to, at the very least, nod along to. And tracks like “Spidersong” come across a little more tragic in a live room.

Nothing about Say Anything’s music or their live set reinvents much of anything. It doesn’t claim to be more important than it is, and you can tell frontman Max Bemis is still onstage for the right reasons. Which is all nice and good, but the strength of his songwriting is what makes things like this matter. I’d go so far as to guess this is what it would’ve been like to see Weezer in 1994 in a room like Metro. Pop punk isn’t going to save the world. Some could easily argue it’s ruining it. Bemis probably wouldn’t argue — he did attack Fall Out Boy onstage Friday night. But when it’s mature, well done, and guilt-free, that’s gotta mean something in this day and age.

— Jaime de’Medici

Category: Live Reviews, Weekly