The Knew is a walking, rolling, fist-clenching party. A fun, funny, and sometimes subversive affair. And their medium is rock and roll – the American strain. We need music for this high-frictose, super-saturated, super-sweet, overdone, oversold, over-processed, over-celebrated super-sized world we live in. That is what we want, or at least what we like, like an over-rationalized bad habit. It is in this dammed if I do or don’t context that I hear this music the loudest. Right through my ears and into my hot head. The songs on this album are rough and friendly, a lot like a big dog who’ll bite your ass unless you let it sniff your outstretched hand first. And if you let it get acquainted, it’ll wag it’s tail, and soon, you will wag yours.
This is an album from a band who has been leaning into it for 10 years, and they know enough to understand satire and earnestness can be part of the same line, the same chord, the same feeling. The sentiment I tried to echo in this art is a serious notion of how ridiculous and extravagant we all can be. We can have our cake and eat it too, but perhaps by doing so, the joke is on all of us: me, you, and the band. We are all sort of ridiculous. And what a sticky mess we make of everything.
