What Made Milwaukee Famous “Trying To Never Catch Up” Review
Published in Culture Bully, The Blog. Tags: Album Reviews, Music.
How much do I love you? That’s such a silly question, my love for you is unconditional. Well, I mean, I love you, but sometimes you really stretch my emotions and make me fear seeing you again. “It’s not no much the way you hurt me, it’s more like the way you make me want to hurt myself.” There’s a give and take throughout the entirety of What Made Milwaukee Famous’ Trying to Never Catch Up, in which singer Michael Kincaid goes round after round with someone he truly cannot live with(out).
Leading up to the album’s release has been a year of absolute marvel for the band which essentially started as it took the stage as one of the hundreds and hundreds of bands at 2005’s SXSW. It was within that strange period of time in which something happened that would change the band’s path forever. Features in Billboard, touring dates with The Black Keys, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and The Arcade Fire as well as a national feature on PBS’s Austin City Limits program (which also featured Franz Ferdinand) quickly helped divide the band’s fans into those that were on “the cutting edge” and those that now could never love the little band they once knew due to wave after wave of hype.
Hype or not, What Made Milwaukee Famous warp gloomy piano/percussion driven songs along with acoustic ballads into a war of the words through which crossed lovers fear to tread. “The Jeopardy of Contentment” advises that “alibis are only excuses, allowances for us to abuse the truth (the truth is I’m done with them).” What isn’t heard, though, is an end to it’s harsh unapologetic love songs. There’s always an opening, and the bridge that crosses the border between love and hate still remains untorched and alive. The album’s title track, “Trying to Never Catch Up,” keeps hope alive that someday things might be right again as it grinds through a moody guitar-driven harmony. “I need you not to cry. I promise that you’ll be that someone that you see…I know it’s tough to heed these apologies, but for now though I’ve got to leave you behind.” The bridge remains.
[This post was first published by Culture Bully.]