Japandroids – Fate & Alcohol
Maybe dudes rock the most when they're self-aware enough to realise it’s time to call it a day?
Fate & Alcohol is the definitive final statement we never thought we’d get from Japandroids – a good band with one perfect album, and an underappreciated misfire of a third record the duo thought would be their OK Computer or their White Pony that seemed destined to be their farewell.
As it happens, Brian King and David Prowse had one final yell like hell to the heavens to deliver. It’s a back-to-basics tale of tiring of constant hangovers, sobering up and getting out – an ode to the younger us. The full throttle guitars and howling vowels of the vocals are familiar pleasures that they nailed better years ago. Familiarity – and earnestness – is, however, what Japandroids do expertly at their most locked in. It’s also been the heaviest load for their music to bear, the easiest way to knock them down.
'Remember saying things like "we'll sleep when we're dead"?' Turns out that feeling does end. But on an all-timer of a closer – a song about a lover, or about each other? – Japandroids figure really that, 'it turns out time don’t change a thing' and leave it on a cliffhanger: 'All bets are off tonight'.
Listen to: Eye Contact High, One Without the Other, All Bets Are Off