The Carolyn
Pyramid Scheme of Grief
(59 X Records/Disconnect Disconnect Records)
4/5
Here’s what Atlanta-based three-piece The Carolyn know what matters: punk songs don’t need to be over two and a half minutes long. As it turns out, no songs on their third LP, Pyramid Scheme of Grief, go beyond that length, and absolutely nothing suffers for it. And like peers in bands like The Lawrence Arms, Joyce Manor, or Gaslight Anthem, The Carolyn manages to pack a lot of feels into a sonic space often wrongfully dismissed as being emotionally stunted.
Sure, it feels like tracks such as the excellent “White Russians” (melancholy through the bravado) and “And the Infinite Void” (driving, moving, finalizing) end a bit prematurely, but didn’t every single song on Hot Water Music’s A Flight and a Crash also end prematurely? (Come on, no way it’s just me who thought that.) And that right there is one of the best melodic punk albums of the past 25 years, so maybe sometimes it’s all about doing what needs to be done and making a quick exit while it’s still good enough to hurt.
“Nosebleeds” is The Menzingers without the hysteria, or Banner Pilot with the hysteria; it’s powerful, it’s full steam ahead, and then it ends, almost right when it’s getting started. “I Thought You Were Dead” came and went before I made any notes about it, but I loved it, and “Katie Arson” has an enveloping sadness through the crashing and bashing and distortion, which is often the best sadness. “Routines” almost falls apart at the seams, which is what the best music does.
I don’t know how long this record is, and I’m not looking because it doesn’t matter—ultimately, the heft is in every kick of the bass drum, in every strained vocal, in every guitar string hit just a bit too hard.
There’s joy in sadness and small victories in defeat and a wisdom in knowing that the more it hurts the better it was. Sometimes a two-minute punk song can sum all that up better than anything else. Nothing else should matter if that’s what I think I know, and that’s what The Carolyn know.