The Observer, November 30, 2007
Volume XL, Issue 12
Streetlight Manifesto revolutionizes ska with Somewhere in the Between
Even in the moments of my greatest distaste for ska, one band still manages to hold my respect. The New Jersey-based Streetlight Manifesto, created by former Catch-22 frontman Tomas Kalnoky, stood and still stands head and shoulders above its peers. Their songs feature melodies and arrangements more classical in style than punk, with multiple time signatures, dynamics, and tempo changes in a single song, and lyrics about something other than "wanting your girlfriend to be my girlfriend too." All of this is still apparent and even improved upon in the band's second album, Somewhere in the Between.
This effort sees everything that was great about 2003's Everything Goes Numb, which established the band's style, realized to an even greater extent and essentially perfected. No longer does Kalnoky write lyrics about nine-millimeters and bulletproof vests. His anti-heroic delusions have been replaced with the philosophic ruminations that were hinted on one of Numb's standout tracks, "Here's to Life." The lyrical content is often as dark as the intense minor-key melodies that accompany them. "Mercy, mercy, mercy me/Praying for the death of a man I'll never meet," Kalnoky laments on the furious "Watch It Crash." Perhaps most effective is his fire-and-brimstone preaching about society's refusal to take blame for its misdoings in "Would You Be Impressed?"
Somewhere in the Between is not all doom and gloom, though. When the band sings "We might just make it after all," in "One Foot On the Gas, One Foot in the Grave" (a companion to past classics "Point/Counterpoint" and "Keasbey Nights"), my heart begins to lift, and by the time they sing "But somewhere in the between/Is a life of which we all dream/And nothing and no one will ever take that away" in the album's title track, the burdens of the world that Kalnoky preached in earlier songs are lifted from my shoulders. Such moments of lyrical excellence alone vanquish the claims that Streetlight Manifesto is "just another ska band," and elevate them to the top of their class.
Of course, a set of lyrics without great melodies and performances to back them results in just a bit of pretty poetry. Streetlight Manifesto has been pushing the limits of the typical ska structure since they started out, but with this album, every song feels truly anthemic and stately. Each is complex and has all sorts of changes and nuances to keep listeners busy for repeated listens, and every song seems to have a dramatic and epic coda tagged to the end. This may sound formulaic in conception, but in execution it only does such grandiose music justice. With the addition of new trumpeter Matthew Stuart, the band sounds more complete and in better form than ever. Stuart's soaring trumpet lines grace "The Blonde Lead the Blind," and trombone player Mike Soprano solos with great intensity over the beautiful chord progression in the album closer, "What a Wicket Gang Are We." Saxophone players Michael Brown and Jim Conti also help flesh out the songs, especially providing the frame for the stunning fugue in the middle of the album's title track. Kalnoky, bassist Peter McCullough, and drummer Christopher Thatcher complete the band with a tight rhythm section, and the band as a whole turns these multi-layered, multi-hooked melodies into something truly impressive.
I must ponder where Streetlight can go after this. An album as fantastically assembled as Somewhere in the Between requires a follow-up even more tremendous and epic. Although such a feat is hard to imagine, Somewhere in the Between proves that the band is capable of pulling it off.
