Well, Jeremy Enigk’s conversion to Chirstianity was no secret during the making of LP2, and based upon the cover for The Rising Tide his transformation to half-man/half-angel is well underway. Enigk's vocals even sound forcefully angelic. Hopefully he's found peace of mind, but the new SDRE sound is too holy for my tastes.
LP2, The Pink Album, Self Titled, whatever the fuck you want to call it is the SDRE album I still come back to often. I know Diary is better written and more unique, in fact LP2 just sounds like a continuation or a B-sides to that album. But some of the tunes here are catchier than most of Diary. It's also not quite as lengthy as its predecessor, which often wears out its welcome with a 53 minute run time.
“Theo B” has a nice guitar jingle with an up-tempo rhythm that drops into the signature SDRE distorted-octave chorus. “Red Elephant” sounds like something U2 might have come up with if they rocked a little harder. “5/4” is named after its tempo, a highly difficult time signature to write a pop song in, but SDRE is up to the task. Perhaps my favorite track to ever be produced by the group is “8,” which was cut originally for a 7” but beefed up and put on LP2. It takes a while to start, with Jeremy Enigk singing quietly to a slow strummed guitar, but blows up into soaring octaves and a great swing beat before settling into those great palm muted power chords I can never get enough of.
The band was in heavy conflict during the recording of LP2 and would disband soon afterwards. Rumor has it the band was fed up with Enigk’s born-again Christianity and his increasing artistic dominance over the band’s direction. They would never match the quality of these two records when they made their comeback a few years later.
My grandfather passed away while I was in my junior year of high school. My family drove up from Florida to attend the funeral, but not before I picked up a bag of shwag for the few boring, dreary nights I’d be spending at Nana’s house. On one of the rare chances my dad and I were able to peel away from the family, we did one of the few things we naturally enjoyed together, which was taking trips to the record store. It was on this trip that I bought two completely dissimilar records, Sublime’s 40 oz. to Freedom and Sunny Day Real Estate’s Diary. At night when everyone would go to sleep, I’d head out to my grandmother’s huge yard, smoke a bowl, come back in and put my headphones on as loud as I could take. I didn’t know my grandfather all that well but it was still a somber moment, and Diary fit the mood perfectly.
When I got back to FL I played Sunny Day more and more. At the time, when most of what I was listening to was punk and rap, Sunny Day’s instrumentation made me think about lead guitar in a different way. Not that it had never been done before, but Sunny Day’s left and right split of both guitars allows for constant leads and intricate weaving of tone. The quiet/loud/quiet dynamic of the 90’s is further built upon as well. William Goldsmith, bored by the frequent monotony of rock/pop percussion, attacks the drums with a barrage of constant snare hits and performs fills and rolls at any moment’s notice. Not to be outdone by the drumming and dueling guitars, the bass is highly technical, and, with the guitars dueling leads, often carries the melody exclusively.
Diary isn’t on regular rotation like it once was. It’s tone, mostly dreary and slow in tempo, make it a record for a specific mood, or maybe it just always reminds me of when I bought it. It’s a highly influential record though, and phenomenally performed. The two stand-outs tracks here are some of the strongest rock cuts to come out of the 90’s. Diary’s opener, “Seven,” is the hardest and most upbeat of the lot, where the drum attack of the intro and transitions from verse to chorus are its highlight (the song is cut short due to MTV’s wishes of bands sticking as closely to a 3:00 run time as possible, the full track clocks in at 4:45).
The best track however resides near the end of the collection, “48” attempts to take the quiet/loud/quiet approach to new extremes, with a serene, almost classical sounding melody during the verse giving way to blaring, distorted octaves as Jeremy Enigk screams at the top of his lungs.
Along with the likes of Sunny Day Real Estate, The Promise Ring, and Jawbreaker, Texas is the Reason are co-founders of a brand of rock that would eventually become synonymous with edgy black hair, tight pants, Rivers Cuomo glasses, and overly-sensitive douchebaggery. But unlike the Saves the Days and Jimmy Eat Worlds of the emo universe, Texas is the Reason has always been one of the more respectable groups to like from the genre. While that might not be saying much due to emo's stigma, Texas is the Reason is without a doubt a very influential group. They combined power-pop, punk rock, and post-hardcore with mid-song tempo changes, drop-D tunings, monster breakdowns, and a more earnest brand of vocals and lyricism than your typical rock band would allow. Followers (mostly forgettable) from Sparta to Taking Back Sunday to most the Deep Elm and Revelation Records bands that would follow would point back to groups like Texas as foundations for their music.
Oddly enough, out of the countless emo bands I listened to throughout the course of the mid-to-late 90’s, Texas is the Reason is a group I never got in to all that much. Most of my friends did, and I know all about them. There isn’t any particular reason for my lack of fandom other than that I never owned their full-length album. As I listen to these somewhat familiar tunes now, there are a few that definitely catch my ear. "Johnny on the Spot" is a rollicking opener, setting the tone for the rest of the record, and "Back and to the Left" is a phenomenal hard rock anthem. Texas is at their best when they rock the fast-tempoed power chord jams, mixing distorted octaves and off-kilter drum beats. The downfall for most will be Garret Klahn's vocals, as his somewhat high-pitched yelp has me thinking Texas would have been better with with a different frontman as well. And while I do enjoy most of these songs, the slower, more "emo" tracks do feel dated at this point, and overall it feels like I missed the Texas boat by about fifteen years; it might be too late for me to jump on board now.
![Release Date: 10.5.1994](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a6/Sunny_Day_Real_Estate_-_Diary.jpg/220px-Sunny_Day_Real_Estate_-_Diary.jpg"){kind=link}
