ALGERNON CADWALLADER – Trying Not To Have A Thought – CD [SEP 19]

CD

Trying Not to Have a Thought isnt just the first Algernon Cadwallader album since 2011s Parrot Flies. Its also the first with their original lineupvocalist-bassist Peter Helmis, guitarists Joe Reinhart and Colin Mahony, and drummer Nick Tazzasince Algernons seminal 2008 debut, Some Kind of Cadwallader. Shortly after that album was recordedand long before it was heralded as a lodestar for the 2010s emo revivalTazza and Mahony departed the band. Despite their looming influence on the aforementioned revival, Algernon broke up in 2012 following the release of Parrot Flies and remained stubbornly deceased until their fiendishly anticipated resurrection in 2022.

I almost see it as fate that it boiled us down to this core, our original form, Helmis says. Theres a certain magic to that that couldnt really be replicated.

There was no expectation that the reunion tour would precipitate new music. However, as the band began rehearsing their classic songs, new ideas started leaking out in the form of off-the-cuff jams, and the seeds of Trying Not to Have a Thought began to germinate. Reinhart was pleasantly surprised that, even after 17 years of not playing together under the Algernon umbrella, the foursomes foundational musical chemistry was still surging.

Im kind of hearing in my head what this persons already doing, Reinhart says, recalling the intuitive flow of those improvisational jams.

Trying Not to Have a Thought is simultaneously the most considered and off-the-cuff Algernon Cadwallader album yet. The 11-song classic was written across two rural retreats on either side of the country, first in Snoqualmie, Washington (mythically known as Twin Peaks), and then in the Poconos in the woods of Pennsylvania. After an initial session at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, the collection was largely recorded and self-produced at Reinharts Headroom Studios in Philadelphia. Whereas some reunion records sound stilted and forced, this record sounds resplendently natural: the production warm and lively, the musicianship congenial yet exacting, and the hooks effortlessly sticky. Fans who’ve been listening to Algernon since their 2005 formation will be fondly reminded of the bands familiar ring, but the album feels distinctly uncoupled from any of the ephemeral trends that Algernon were previously filed under. Their musical touchpoints remain unchangedJoan of Arc and Pavement in a blender is where we end up sitting, Reinhart says with a smilebut the band sounds more comfortably singular than ever before.

Algernon Cadwallader are certainly cognizant of their cult legacy, a status that’s transformed their fanbase into a unique convergence of graying punk lifers and fresh-faced teens who first discovered midwest emo on TikTok. Given the long gap between albums and the critical acclaim theyve garnered in that time, it wouldve been understandable for the guys to feel pressured to live up to their own standards while making this new record. Thankfully, the opposite was the case.

If anything, I think [our legacy] made us feel like we had more freedom to be ourselves and let it come out naturally, Helmis says. Reinhart doubles down on their creative autonomy: The only thing we ever try to do is entertain ourselves. Do we like this? Good. No? Lets try harder.”

Trying Not to Have a Thought differs most from previous Algernon records in its lyrical content. On their first two albums, Helmis avoided heart-on-sleeve emo tropes by penning prose that was ambiguous and out there. For this batch of songs, Helmis felt compelled to be a little more thematically explicit, pointedly exploring the tension between the necessity of self-improvement and the urgency of the external. Specifically, the doom-scrollable apocalypse that is modern American life. Album opener Hawk is a brisk, poignant meditation on grief that weighs the ache of loss against the bittersweet memories that keep the deceased ever present. Revelation 420 and Million Dollars are scorching political diatribes that excoriate capitalisms failures and venerate protest. Attn MOVE is a historical reminder of the MOVE 9, a group of Black radical activists whose Philadelphia homes were notoriously bombed by police in 1985a block of houses that’s located right between Reinharts current house and Headroom Studios.

With Trying Not to Have a Thought, Algernon Cadwallader juggle intrinsic musical connection and shrewd lyrical intention with remarkable poise. The albums title perfectly captures that dual approach: the effort to resist being mentally bogged down by the bottomless list of daily atrocities, and the bands decision to let their unspoken connection guide this rejuvenated take on their classic sound. This is just what comes out of us when these four people get in a room, Helmis says. And this record is exactly that: an Algernon Cadwallader album that’s leisurely, intensely, tremendously their own.

Tracklist:

1.Hawk
2.Shameless Faces (even the guy who made the thing was a piece of shit)
3.What’s Mine
4.noitanitsarcorP
5.Koyaanisqatsi
6.Trying Not To Have A Thought
7.You’ve Always Been Here
8.Revelation 420
9.Million Dollars
10.Attn MOVE
11.World Of Difference