Generationals – Alix

The Perfect Album for the Instagram Age

The indie rock duo, Generationals, is Grant Widmer and Ted Joyner. Former members of The Eames Era band, the duo formed after watching the 2008 presidential election. Every issue, they said, seemed to be an issue of their generation. Even though the president that inspired the band did not deliver on his message of hope as many might have wanted, six years after that night in Chicago and five years after their first album, Generationals still bubble over with the same sense of optimism on their new album, Alix.

The music is decidedly upbeat with its inventive and varied percussion. This is heard right from the first track, “Black Lemon,” which combines a cowbell melody that is layered from underneath with an artificial drumbeat. It is because of the cowbell and the sneaky baseline that wedges itself between the overarching melodies that the listener might think that this is a happy song. It isn’t. Over the happy beat, Joyner laments that he let his “old life tie [him] to the tracks” and is just trying to “make it to the end of the day.” This trend of catchy pop mixed with melancholy lyrics becomes a theme throughout the album.

While melancholy mixed with catchy pop is the theme of the album, they never represent it in the same way twice. The variety on the album is astounding. Some songs on the album have the swagger of a rap song, like “Gold Silver Diamond” with its jangly, delicate piano and base-heavy beat. Other songs recall 80’s electronica, such as “Welcome to the Fire,” while still maintaining their melancholia with lines like “I’ll keep it low / Tell you anything you want to hear / Won’t talk about that night.”

Despite all the variety on the album, there is still cohesion. The cohesion comes from two places: the rhythm section and the vocals. The rhythm section provides consistency because although there is variety, each song has a strong backbeat and a slick, noticeable and funk-inspired baseline. The vocals are the real glue that holds the album together: Over the course of thirty-six minutes, the duo puts their falsetto to superb use, recalling the disco greatness of The Bee Gees. This is shown most strikingly on the final song of the album, “Would You Want Me,” where their harmonies are so good, they make you want to strut.

There is no denying that Alix is a departure from the duo’s last album, the mostly guitar-driven, Heza; but the strange instrumentation that made them so unique is still present. And the progression into a more electronically-centered sound is appropriate, if only to reflect the direction that their generation is moving. The electronic, disco-influenced instrumentation is like a new Instagram filter: something to hide the imperfections, something to cover-up the emptiness that this anti-social, electronic age brings. But if this is what the Instagram generation sounds like, no one would be too devastated.