It almost seems redundant or cliche at this point to describe a band as one that is "life-changing" or one that "saved a life," but I can honestly say that Marshalltown, Iowa's Modern Life Is War fits into both of those categories for me.
Around two years ago, the by now seemingly endless cycle of personal mental demons were just starting their assault on me, and I was completely unsure of how to cope with them. In MLIW, I found a band that not only had the sense of musical urgency and desperation that I felt every day, but lyrically expressed the same hopeless feelings and anger that are born from growing up in a small Midwestern town - let alone just going to school there, as is my experience.
Some of my best hardcore memories revolve around this band: seeing them (and the absolutely mental crowd reaction) for the first time at Posi Numbers 05 in Wilkes-Barre, "The Outsiders" exploding like a bomb at a show in a packed classroom at DePaul in Chicago, and crust punks and hardcore kids alike going absolutely mental the whole set at the Tragedy show in Milwaukee. But the one that stands head and shoulders above the others is the night that this band played a one-off show at a friend's apartment in Macomb, Illinois. Even playing on a weeknight to less than 50 people (all going apeshit, natch), this band still played with an intensity and passion I have only seen a small handful of times before.
MLIW has become known for breeding their own seemingly completely unique sound - a driving, melodic, almost formless breed of hardcore that seems to sonically reproduce the physical surroundings of a small industrial Iowa town. Their first two full-lengths, My Love. My Way. and Witness, were lauded among hardcore and non-hardcore fans alike as the shot in the arm a largely stagnant genre desperately needed. So, needless to say, Midnight In America was hyped up just a bit.
So how does it deliver? Well, it's certainly not their best work (that, in my mind, is still Witness), but that isn't saying it's a bad record at all. What is the most noticeable flaw in the record, in my opinion, comes quite literally at the very beginning. My Love... and Witness both opened with some of the most driving, epic songs I've ever heard in my life in "Breaking the Cycle" and "The Outsiders," respectively. By comparison, "Useless Generation" just doesn't have the same slap-in-the-face appeal to it, though I love the track once it gets past the awkward drum roll intro and into a heavier interlude and the punchy instrumentation that follows for the remainder of the song.
The production on this record is much more high-cost than the previous two releases as well, but it seems as though hardcore bands have learned how to have fantastic production while still retaining an edge and straying away from flash (Converge's No Heroes being a prime example). Though the production is hardly Nickelback quality, I still feel a little let down by the fact that while there is more weight to the music, much of the rawness of the MLIW sound seems to be gone.
Perhaps it speaks to the overall strength of the band as songwriters that the good songs on this record really explode out of the speakers, whereas the bad songs aren't even bad so much as forgettable (minus the atrocious "Fuck the Sex Pistols"). There are no punishing epiphany-inducing tracks like on the previous albums ("By the Sea," "D.E.A.D.R.A.M.O.N.E.S.") but the quality is certainly still there. I was incredibly impressed with the atmospheric, swaggering version of the classic "Stagger Lee" folk tale, while "These Mad Dogs of Glory" and "The Motorcycle Boy Reigns" would feel at home on any of their other releases - though there is an interesting almost traditional breakdown within the latter. Jeff's lyrics are the only thing that have stayed flat line consistent over the band's history - both the quality and the delivery are just as phenomenal as ever.
The album's closer and title track brings me to my last point about this album, and really about this band as a whole. MLIW has been able to craft a sound that, as I said earlier, seems to be incredibly evocative of the surroundings from which they came. The - dare I say - epic and persistent instrumentation evokes mental images of wide open spaces, cornfields and desperate solitude. Jeff is an incredible lyricist, with brooding and brutally introspective lyrics born from growing up an outsider in a small Midwestern town. There is certainly a reason why I listen to this band almost exclusively at school: Modern Life Is War is a soundtrack for living in isolation, surrounded by the heartland that has the ability to both feed the American Dream and stagnate the minds and hopes of those living in the towns within.
Is it fair to judge this record based on the band's already plaudit-winning previous work? Perhaps not, but I think it's also fair to say that if Witness or My Love... did not exist, if this was MLIW's first record, I would not be as inclined to love them as I do today.
Overall...6.5/10...7/10 if I'm in a particular mood.
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