If everything was right with the world, then the new American Music Club album would be an absolute stinker.
Consider the evidence: The band only recently reformed after a decade-long break. And, as if having the “reunion” tag hanging over them wasn’t bad enough, three members of the band have since left, leaving only singer Mark Eitzel and guitarist Vudi to record and tour a new album with a replacement rhythm section. Not only that, but the record they have finally come up with has a song about the World Trade Center on it. Uh-oh.
Perhaps most troubling of all is the apparent change in Mark Eitzel’s mental state over the past few years. He has always been the band’s artistic focal point and, after many years of being a reluctant, awkward, and famously depressed poster boy for wretchedly miserable music fans the world over, these days Eitzel seems much happier and more comfortable in himself: almost cheerful, in fact. Could things get any worse?
Let’s face it: if there’s one thing — ONE thing — we all know to be absolutely true about the world of modern music, it’s that artists make better records when they are battling the demons of depression and dependancy. As Marvin Gaye said “great artists suffer for the people” and, as Eitzel’s back catalog proves, he has suffered more than most.
Amazingly, despite all of this, and perhaps even because of a lot of it, The Golden Age is a genuine triumph. Eitzel’s new-found contentment may rob the new album of some of the blacker, bleaker extremes of AMC records past, but this is no bad thing. It means instead that the songs are now better balanced, with more space for hope, humor, and redemption.