ARTIST: The Figgs
TITLE: Follow Jean Through The Sea
LABEL: Gern Blandsten Records
GENRE: Rock
TIME: 32:27 min
SIZE:  50,6 MB
RIP DATE: Nov-25-2006
RELEASE DATE: Nov-28-2006
WEBSITE: n/a

Track List:

01. Breaking Through These Gates               03:00
02. Regional Hits                              03:12
03. Don't Hurt Me Again                        02:44
04. Follow Jean Through The Sea                02:49
05. City Left Home                             03:36
06. Jumping Again                              03:52
07. Let Me Hold You                            02:14
08. Hobble Skirt (In Erie)                     03:01
09. I Won't Go To Miami                        04:18
10. Chasing After Words                        03:41

Release Notes:

In "Regional Hits", the second cut on the Figgs'
10th full-length album, guitarist Mike Gent
describes a scenario that must have happened once or
twice to his band.  A song comes on the radio that
no one's ever heard.  The girls are dancing.  The
beat's insistent, the guitars twitchily fuck-it-all.
It's a "regional hit", the kind of song that gets
the kids moving in local clubs but never makes it to
radio.  Gent and his crew, Pete Donnelly on bass and
Pete Hayes on drums, might be forgiven for making
the song bitter...after all, how can a cut this
catchy lose out to Josh Groban in the world
marketplace?  But no, the beat is bouncy, the
choruses insidiously hooky, the guitars fuck-it-all
insouciant, a peanut gallery of mockers when the
verse turns to matters like publishing rights.  Yes,
we're screwed, we've always been screwed, we'll
always be screwed, is the song's upbeat message, but
what does that have to do with anything?

Started in 1987, the Figgs have had their brushes
with greatness, their flirtations with major labels,
their ego-gratifying nods from established masters
(they have toured as backing band for Graham Parker
and Tommy Stinson).  Their sound, which still
contains traces of late æ80s college rock jangle and
early æ90s new wave beats, is not exactly timeless
but not wholly dated either, unless staccato
four-four drums and driving guitar eighth-notes have
gone out of style, which, last I checked, they
hadn't.  Yet though some elements of the Figgs'
no-holds-barred power pop have remained constant,
their latest album shows a sort of maturity, a
coming to terms with the fact that good party music
is hard to make and easy to dismiss...but that
making it has its own rewards.

The first half of the album is good, not stunning,
including the sideways grinning "Regional Hits" and
the dizzily sweet, backwards-looking title track.  A
Joe Jackson-ish "Don't Hurt Me Again", also up
front, is jangly and urgent, juxtaposing romance and
realism in acid lines like, "I would give you a
helping hand if you would...come untie me," its
intensity not at all compromised by new wave
harmonics.

Still, it's in the album's second half that the
Figgs really take off, starting with the very
Mats-reminiscent "Jumping Again" with its stinging
guitar opening and swirling, giddy pop chorus.  But
if the Figgs use the same chords and tropes as Let
It Be-era Replacements, they do so from a less
damaged, less desperate perspective.  "Jumping
Again" is like a Mats song in an alternate world
where the sheer joy of the ride overwhelms all the
crap that comes with it.  Maybe aging gives
perspective; the band observes that "This town is no
easier than it's ever been" but turns to aspirin,
not hard drugs, to ease the pain.

"Jumping Again" is, by a nose, the album's best cut,
but it leads into a whole series of winners.
There's new wave jittery "Let Me Hold You", surely
one of the band's live highlights, all driving
eighth notes and circling choruses, very rock
without being in the slightest bit heavy.  It's
followed by the dryly humorous "Hobbie Skirt (In
Erie)", its simplicity-movement, back-to-the-land
verses in conflict with the caffeinated propulsion
of the musical line.  "We ended up in Erie / We
ended up with tractors and plows / This was a new
beginning / no more dealing with traffic and
crowds," the band sings in happy harmony, but you
can't help but feel, given the coiled twitchy
guitar, that they're not as comfortable with the
simple life as they let on.

You could spend all day picking the lyrics on this
album apart, but it would be a waste of time,
because in the end, the words shrink a little away
from the music.  They're only remarkable for the way
they fit into surging melodies and hard-charging
rhythms. In the album's closer, "Chasing after
words", the words talk about trying to pin down
meaning, making sense of things.  But it's not until
just before the bridge when "Chasing after words /
Couldn't pin them down / Chasing after words" turns
into "Thought I heard a sound....sound" that the
song picks up and flies, jittery and pop-rock into
the ether.