On May 1, the midwest emo band American Football released their fourth album, American Football (LP4). Given that this is their first album in seven years, I and many fans highly anticipated the release of LP4 and American Football’s subsequent tour. The album represents a shift towards the post-rock genre and darker lyrical themes, including grief, the anxieties of middle age and divorce. LP4 features some impressive collaborations on “Wake Her Up” with fourth-wave shoegaze darling Wisp and “No Feeling” with Brendan Yates, frontman of the hardcore punk band and recent Grammy winner Turnstile.
Started in the late ’90s by students at the University of Illinois, American Football released their debut album American Football (LP1) (1999) to universal acclaim before breaking up in 2000 to pursue other endeavors. LP1 became wildly influential — essentially the Bible of the midwest emo and math rock genres — for its intricate, sparkly guitar tunings and odd time signatures coupled with its signature, nostalgic sound. Like a breakup letter to the state of Illinois, LP1 is depressing and resigned, yet Mike Kinsella’s then-youthful voice provided a sense of hope, as though better things were to come.
I can’t get enough of LP1. Since November, I’ve streamed it over 300 times. It’s complete genius, from the vibrant yet wistful arpeggios to the length of each instrumental segment before progressing to the next part of the song. American Football knew exactly when this guitar should come in, how long that guitar should play its 7/4 rhythm for and how long the vocals should linger for. It’s nothing short of beautiful, and its melodramatic vocals feel just right.
Fast forward 27 years, and we get LP4. The band is all grown up now, and instead of singing about summer relationships that didn’t last into the school year, frontman Mike Kinsella’s got marriage problems and cricks in the neck. Unfortunately, LP4 represents a decline in Kinsella’s songwriting ability, however innovative the instrumentation around him may be. While LP1’s lyrics were an acceptable kind of wishy-washy poetry, the band is frankly too old for LP4’s lyrics to sound like they do. Take this line in the lead single “Bad Moons”: “Ask my ex-wife / She met Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide / I know, I know, I know that should be a "Y" / But none of my "Whys" ever get answered.” Really, Mike?
But as long as you can ignore that, LP4 is gorgeous. Instrumentally, it’s how I wish more modern music sounded. The drumming is noticeably great, and the guitars are as sparkly as ever, although noticeably less repetitive than some of their previous work. I actually love the repetition on LP1 — the two-minute-long intro to “Stay Home” is my favorite thing they’ve ever done — but some variation is always nice. One gripe I do have with their sound on this album, however, is that it has lost the sense of nostalgia that made LP1 so great. The simultaneous warmth and melancholy of songs like “The Summer Ends” is infectious and so core to their identity, yet is completely missing in the icy soundscape on LP4. Yet I don’t blame the band for musically experimenting. After all, they’re not 20-year-olds anymore, and they shouldn’t have to sound like a bunch of kids playing around with their guitars in their dorm’s music practice room.
The biggest point of comparison is their previous record, American Football (LP3) (2019). Yes, they name all their albums after themselves. LP3 was new territory for the band, where they flirted with post-rock but more wholeheartedly adopted dream pop into their sound. It certainly helps that, as someone whose favorite bands are Paramore and Slowdive, LP3 saw American Football collaborate with Paramore’s Hayley Williams on the phenomenal “Uncomfortably Numb” and Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell on “I Can’t Feel You.”
On LP4, however, American Football loses its dream pop sound in favor of a more drawn-out, mature feel, and it feels like neither a step up nor down. I’ve previously written articles gushing about the joys of the long song, and I was giddy when I found out that “Bad Moons” was going to be eight minutes long. Yet, while other post-rock music like the pretentious trifecta of Swans, Slint or GY!BE live and die by the longer instrumental segment, the songs on LP4 are instead mostly textured with guitar ear-candy. The album’s few instrumental breaks are nice, but they don’t have as much of an effect on me as they did in LP1.
This line from the 2000 Pitchfork review of LP1 by Taylor M. Clark stands out to me: “My biggest complaint about American Football, though, is that they don't suck terribly.” The review is unexpectedly positive, and the real source of Clark’s frustration is he must carry the label of “emo-boy” for liking LP1. I feel similarly about LP4: It’s quite good for a record that is best characterized by its flaws. “Bad Moons,” despite its lyrics, is an incredible song (with an incredible music video), and the instrumentation on “Desdemona” is fantastic and inventive in all the right ways. Besides the lyrics, the album’s only real problem is that it lives in the shadow of one of the most iconic, influential rock albums of all time.
It’s definitely American Football. Some people even think it’s better than American Football. But it’s not as good as American Football. And that’s okay. I still bought tickets to their tour. While I hope they play lots of songs from LP1, I’m also open to having LP4 dazzle me in person.
Gustavo Ponzoa is a member of the Class of 2029 in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is a contributor for the Arts & Culture department and can be reached at gap87@cornell.edu.
