River City Extension, Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Your Anger, 2012

Sunday Piscataway Run Album Review

Did you ever notice that when an act is from New Jersey, that fact becomes a huge part of their identity?  I could just be missing something, but it feels like it's less common to hear bands from other parts of the country referred to as XYZ Place's Such-and-Such.  California and Brooklyn, sure.  Maybe Athens, Georgia.  New Jersey, though, seems to impart its own terroir to music produced by artists as diverse as Bon Jovi and Count Basie, The Feelies and Dionne Warwick, Screaming Females and Whitney Houston, The Wrens and The Four Seasons.  Maybe it's some combination of so many people living on top of one another, in the shadows of two of America's largest cities, with the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean on the doorstep, that results in some of our favorite music.

I thought about this yesterday while making my "run" for the second straight day between CoolDaughter #1's swim meet in Piscataway, NJ and home.  I turned River City Extension's Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Your Anger way up in the car and immediately felt a connection with this Ocean County eight-piece.

If last week was "Heaven" week, then this week was "Mid-Atlantic Americana" week (It could also have been "Canadian guitar-drum duo" week, but that's a review for another day).  River City Extension are a very different animal, though, from the subject of Thursday's review, Heyward Howkins.  While singer/songwriter/guitarist Joe Michelini produces his share of intimate acoustic numbers, the album really comes to life when the band is pumping at full force.

"If You Need Me Back In Brooklyn" starts like one of those intimate, singer-songwriter tracks and builds to an Arcade Fire-esque finale.  "Welcome To Pittsburgh" is a great pop tune featuring one of my favorite lyrics* on the record: "But I learned every line I need to know / To help a person change and grow / I don't rehearse them for people like you though."  On "There and Back Again," Michelini starts off by saying, "I live by the ocean, but I don't feel free," and sums up that whole New Jersey feeling I was talking about earlier.

Michelini has written some deeply personal songs about substance abuse, freedom or the lack of it, and personal change that are enhanced by the drums, banjos, handclaps and group vocals you'd expect in rootsy Americana.  But there are also plenty of production flourishes that give the songs a modern sound.  I can see Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Your Anger becoming a longtime favorite of mine like two albums that I found myself thinking about the whole time I listened:  Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and The Monitor by Titus Andronicus (that would be New Jersey's Titus Andronicus).

In this part of New Jersey, we've got the beach.  We've got Springsteen.  It's hard sometimes, though, not to gaze across the river or out into the ocean and think that you've got to be destined for bigger things.  The dreams of those bigger things and, maybe, the feelings you get when they don't quite come true can really produce some great music.

People in my neck of the woods can check out River City Extension on August 17th as part of WBJB's Songwriters in the Park series.



*A quick word about lyrics:  I don't comment much on lyrical content in these reviews for a few reasons.
1.  Most of the time these are first listens, and I don't really have time to dive too deep.
2.  I feel like trying to interpret someone else's lyrics is a good way to make myself look like an idiot.
3.  Initially anyway, I experience songs as a whole package, and dissecting the lyrical content might take something away from that for me.