Currently headlining the "Why Don't You Change YOUR Name Tour," Feable Weiner knows that its name is ridiculous, but the Tennessee-based pop-punkers revel in this fact. Left jaded by an underground music scene which is saturated with über-serious, intricate, overtly-emotional nonsense, Feable Weiner is my anti-emo (you know, like the "sports are my anti-drug" advertisements? No? Oh well, nevermind).
Feable Weiner has waged a no-holds-barred war against the music industry with their debut album, "Dear Hot Chick." The album arrives in a miniaturized Trapper Keeper, complete with a Velcro tab that wraps around the edge to keep its precious contents safe. Fortunately, the joys of "Dear Hot Chick" extend past its clever visual appeal.
Musically, "Dear Hot Chick" offers an interesting array of intricate harmonies and abrasive punk-rock spontaneity. The vocal harmonies are nothing short of spectacular, especially during the several points on the album where everything drops out except for the voices of the four band-mates, who have mastered jumping from croon to wail. In songs such as "Catalyst" and "U Minus Cool," the band erupts from the midst of a complex multi-part harmony into the punk rock frenzy driven by the aggressive percussion-work of drummer Jeff Horne.
The album opens with "San Deem Us Ready," a fast-paced and silly ode to the troubles of long-distance relationships. After a brief low-fi, fake-out intro, the song takes off with a "Johnny B. Goode" style guitar riff and jumps into the energetic verse. Anderson's vocal melody bounces along just as fast as the verse, matching every one of Ben Harper's bass notes with a syllable. He sings with no regard for conventional sentence structure, "To the dearest one, hottest one, bestest one I know in California/ Stayed there and lived 'cause that is where your mommy born ya/ So unfortunate for me 'cause I'm stuck here in Tennessee." The verse is followed with a dramatic pause before the hook-laden chorus packed with oooh's backed by the occasional 'ahhhh.'
The second track, "Strawberry Debutante," tells of one of Anderson's secret admirers and the mysterious letters she has been sending him. Anderson croons, "Pictures of you, modeling your new white dress/ They found their way to my address/ I got one letter from one REALLY REALLY hot chick/ I was licking on the envelope where you had licked/ Thought I'd tell you you're hot/ You know I like you a lot/ And you look hot in the pictures I got/ Please be my Strawberry Debutante." Anderson's goofy lyrics mesh perfectly with the light-hearted tone of the pop-punk chord-changes on which they reside to create a cheerful yet sarcastic mood that persists throughout the album.
The next track, "Catalyst," opens with a mid-tempo rock progression that quickly digresses into a soft array of harmonized "whoas" before switching back into rock and roll gear. Lyrically, the song explores the band's failed attempts to court some of the local women of Nashville. Anderson harps, "We found some chicks that thought they were better than us so we fell in love/ We tried our best to talk to them/ They said they were the Crème de la Crème /and that we were the Nonsense so we jumped to Karate stance and said/ We are not the Nonsense, we are the Catalyst."
Another stand-out track, "Lame Face," tells of a conflict between the band and a critic, concluding with the ingenious chorus, "You said, this song was lame, and I said, so is your face/ You said this song could be better, and I said, so could your face."
"Dear Hot Chicks" towers as a whole as an impressive, cohesive piece, with other standouts including "Handjabs," "U Minus Cool" and "Moron, Less Off." The only weak track on the album is the second to last song, "Attorneying Me On." Although the song has great lyrics, the harmonizing is not as effective as in other attempts, and the song is so fragmented with rhythm changes that it's hard to follow and lacks continuity. But after the album's moment of weakness comes one of the album's strongest offerings. The last song, "Ohh Ahh," builds from simple ooooh's and ahhhh's into a chaotic finale of sweeping harmony.
In the face of all the unjustified angst sucking the life out of the underground music scene, Feable Weiner offers hope as well as one of the most exciting and well-written albums of the year. And now, the Weiner is out and jumping from ear to ear as the band has started to gain in much-deserved popularity. While I cannot speak for the men that have created it, there is nothing feeble about the songs that this album delivers.
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