Album Review: Stuck Like That

Burnt Out Graduate, or bog, might just be your next favourite band. If you like clever lyrics, complex rhythms, emotional melodies, intricate sections, epic moments spliced in with occasional comedy you’re in for a treat. bog’s nine-track album, Stuck Like That is here. The performances are perfect, the songs are unique, the production is faultless. They’re either heart-warming, eccentric or full of existential dread. The cover features a toy monster truck, stuck in some mud, or perhaps a bog, but the meaning of it all only becomes clear once you have travelled through the intense journey of the album.

The album blasts open with 4v2, a pop punk gem filled with phasy, glassy guitars and fast paced drums. Breaking the fourth wall early on, vocalist Max McCalpine cautions the listener about the dangers of writing lyrics: “(I’m) writing out some random stuff, until it connects with someone, my voice is heard but it’s no more valid than the next person who buys the round and turns around to no-one”. If these lyrics strike you as unusual this is only the beginning of some very odd and oddly timed (and rarely rhyming) words that continue into adjacent lines like post-modern poetry.

McCalpine asks us “what’s the point of moving backwards?” as drummer Billy Bathgate propels the songs forwards with an anxious yet appealing energy as the guitars glide effortlessly around a playful bassline. “…and I don’t want to change or rearrange my life according to some new age magazine, that I found on the toilet seat”, he confesses. These lyrics are indicative of the whole album; unconventional, impertinent and personal, delivered in an unusual pattern of syllables that usually result in sentences being broken up by the ends of riffs and beginning a new stanza, creating thought-provoking groups of words. The song, like much of the album to follow, is about leaving tertiary study, nostalgic memories and life affirming reminders, but this song specifically discusses writers-block also. There’s an emotional slow down at the conclusion ending with a cryptic, bittersweet chord that hints hopefully at an unsure future.

Second track Rust has an incredible drum intro leading into a complex stop-start rhythm that forms the verse. There’s some really nice interplay between Sam White’s intricate basslines that anchor and redefine the guitar parts of Brandon Gill and Jimmy Lindsay. The lyrics here are reminders about mortality and life in general: “retrace, rewind, remind myself once again that all things deal with time”. The song appears to be about admitting fault while wondering about the future. There’s a brilliant melodic solo that floats above the elaborate parts beneath at the end too. Tasty.

One sounds similar, at its most fuzzy, to American rock band Superheaven, but the band returns to more familiar territory with its playful and complex jazzy vibes soon afterwards. The chords and riffs are unashamedly major with positive lyrics of assertive messages: “don’t stop you’ve almost made it through, don’t give up, or be disrespectful to, the person that I was, before I met you”. Like so many other songs, there is a sentimental element that is established, not too dissimilar to The Smiths, through gorgeous musical parts partnered with lyrics that indicate heartbreak or disillusionment with society.

Matter has a marching drum intro leading into sparkling guitars that the bass plucks out certain notes creating clouds of indistinct chords. This song talks of avoiding responsibility and, again, developing beyond a personality built on identifying as a university student: “you look back and remember to remind yourself it was the time of your life, what the hell would you be doing otherwise”. There’s some truly yearning melodies here to enjoy while the lyrics remind the listener that either life is short and pointless, or short and incredibly important. The theme here is mortality, but with a definite Kiwi flavour; think Th’ Dudes, The Exponents or Crowded House.

Songs like Cat Song and Keyring flow together nicely because of how ridiculous the lyrics are: (“maybe it’s just time I just get a dog, or a more outgoing cat”, or “I just need a key that sits on a fucking keyring, my one doesn’t have a hole in it, why would they make it like that? Stupid design flaw that makes my life miserable, I just want to stop losing stuff”), but the music remains complex, incorporating dreamy textures with blissed out chorus, or jazzy beats building to shouted shouting mantras about taking cats for walks or losing keys.

Manchild is the lead single of the album, a real feel-good major key punk-pop tune. It’s catchy as hell with a chorus you can sing along to nearly immediately: “you’re a man-child, you need to grow the fuck up, stop day drinking, have some respect for yourself”. It’s fast paced and dense with tricky melodic runs and drum fills galore. Hell, it’s even got a sample from the 1991 arrest of Jack Karlson in his unmistakable stentorian tone, “Gentlemen, this is democracy manifest!”, “What is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent Chinese meal?”. It’s funny, but the lyrics (again) suggest themes of arrested development, (im)maturity and ultimately, mortality.

The Void continues this theme with spacey arpeggios in (for the first time in the album) a minor key with a melancholy vibe. This song is different from almost every song on the album as it’s not really wistful but truly gloomy. After all the upbeat tunes it hits a bit different. The lyrics are appropriately ominous: “It’s not like I’ve got a choice, just need a break from the noise, don’t promise it’s not personal, it’s business”. Clever little guitar fills appear as the band takes breaths like they’re swimming or sobbing. “Wake me up when this life is over, I want to start again”, McCalpine intones with his signature syncopated syllables that gracefully tumble around the riffs and beats. With a song so overtly covering the theme of mortality it would seem appropriate to end the album on this note, but bog has different ideas…

As I anticipated, Hollaback BOG is partially a cover of Gwen Stefani’s 2005 hit song Hollaback Girl but the shouted chorus only appears half-way through the song. The introduction incorporates some beautiful, hyper emotional melodic lines, continuing the nostalgic and slightly depressed vibe from the last song. The song builds to an incredible crescendo, but the climax only lasts for a moment before the illusion is broken by the chorus from the famous pop song. After all the music preceding it, the lyrics take on a different meaning, but some of the original intention (asserting oneself and not being defined by others’ perceptions and not responding to insults) remains intact. While the idea may well have begun as a joke between band members, it seems strange to begin with, then curiously fitting. The band then breaks into a section demonstrating some incredible drumming and some tasteful lead guitar playing, all without resorting to much distortion at all – phase, chorus and delay are the heroes here.

What a journey. So densely packed are the components that create this music that the listener feels they’ve traversed far more than nine tracks. There is absolutely nothing unnecessary on Stuck Like That – it’s all killer no filler. The music is recorded and mixed brilliantly in a sparklingly clear production. The vocals are always decipherable but not really competing for the same frequency as other instruments. It’s quirky, clever, competent and genuine filled with confessional lyrics, sometimes leaning toward the surreal. The themes of the album, like the cover art, could be about being stuck between worlds. A toy monster truck, an obvious symbol of boyhood, stuck in a (boggy?) mountain of mud appears to hint at where the band is at. While this might seem an odd symbolic interpretation, that’s only if you assume being trapped between worlds is a bad thing – on this album, bog demonstrates how they can effortlessly hop between genres and between atmospheres, twisting from existentialism into comedy and back again without dropping a beat.

Album of the year? It’s hard to find fault (even if I was initially unsure of the Stefani song right at the end). It’s a sleek, shiny and sophisticated album. Stuck? Nope, they’re navigating the unsure terrain with grace.