IThis is a rock n’ roll review: One should not give in to the temptation to throw around food metaphors like some children in a pie fight. (Drat!) Gluttony is not acceptable even if we were to talk about something as tasty a dish as Sandwich’s latest album – a sinful and rich concoction that puts icing with quite a generous helping of nuts for good measure. Kidding aside, the third album from modern Pinoy rock’s most eminent super-group deserves much more than puerile gastronomical wordplay. After three albums these past years, one would think that us music journalists would think up something better – but then again we aren’t that an imaginative a bunch. Thankfully, the music is enough.
Independently produced and released by the band, "Thanks To The Moon’s Gravitational Pull" sparkles with Sandwich’s characteristic energy that many thought would’ve exhausted itself out by now, burdened by age and the Sisyphus-like responsibility of trying to outdo oneself.
Indeed, its previous effort "Four Track Mind" was marred by sluggishness in some spots when it seemed that the band was trying to keep up with the racket of younger contemporaries. Consequently, the band-members find themselves a whale in a pond and sounding somewhat landlocked as a result. It’s tempting to call their current offering as a return to form – misleading, of course, because the band has never been in finer form.
All the songs arrive (is there a better word?) with a newfound sense of glory and history about them. 2 Trick Pony, an overt nod to the Madchester scene in the late ’80s, is also the cousin of the band’s anthem Butterfly Carnival from Sandwich’s debut, managing the same trick of making the most out of the least number of chords. Surrounded By Dogs, Not This Time and Astroholiday are all great rock numbers that one suspects are killer tracks live. Even the obligatory metal number (the record’s weakest track by the way) was the new album’s first hit and is only a setback in the sense that it hasn’t grown up as well as its siblings. However, it demonstrates that the band can still rock out with the young ‘uns. (Remember, Sandwich still has to share billing with them at concerts.)
Yet it’s the album’s more somber moments that manage to linger and depict a sonic portrait of the band as elder statesmen of the scene. (A distinction foisted on them rather unwillingly but a fact nonetheless.) Scared Shitless is as stark and majestic as it is unflinching in its honesty, limpid as a Peter Hook bassline and as lovely. Masilungan is pure pop delight that comes as no surprise as Sandwich has members from at least two of the great pop acts from the band boom of the ’90s. The album’s centerpiece though is the unassuming but pristine Return To Center that probably shares with Ciudad’s Call It Flick the recognition of best song released so far this year. (In case, you’re still interested, I would name Orange and Lemon’s A Beginning Of Something Wonderful as a close second.)
These are the album’s songs to share your last cigarette with. Played with a mordant sense of maturity, each of them resounds deeply and its resonance lasts longer than a squealing guitar solo. (Not that we don’t need a little noise from time to time.) Lines like "And I can’t wait to get home/Can’t wait to get out of here/Can’t wait to be all alone" are rendered poignant by the resignation of the delivery and the sweetness of the music itself. Building on the direction hinted at from their last album’s excellent Hairpin, it’s apparent that one of the country’s best rock bands can now start an alternate career as a pop outfit.
So, will the kids get it? The answer is, of course, they already have.
Another serving? Sorry, couldn’t help it.