Koufax
Indie Rock / Undefined
"What the public wants is what it gets," sings Koufax frontman Robert Suchan on Hard Times are in Fashion opener "Why Bother At All," quite aptly. Yet, in this Age of No Feeling, the public's been asking for rather little and getting even less in return. That's exactly why we are excited to have Koufax step in.
Studiously building on the momentum brought forth by 2002's Social Life , the mid-western collective Koufax returns with fanfare for Hard Times are in Fashion . Jointly led by vocalist/guitarist Suchan and songwriting partner/pianist Jared Rosenberg and enabled by various co-conspirators, Koufax pose many a question across the 11-track duration of Hard Times are in Fashion .
Case by case, song for song, Koufax is giving no answers here. Nor should they have to: When you're presenting such a travelogue of sights ‘n' sounds, hues ‘n' chromatics, dynamics ‘n' drive – Van Dyke Parkes would be proud – the jury can remain out. After all, it's the songs that count, man.
Kicking hard from the gates is the aforementioned urgency of "Why Bother At All." Armed with a mighty backbeat, Koufax show that their aim is true and, despite Suchan's claims otherwise, they're certainly not going underground – a very nearly ambivalent observation on his generation's jaundiced apathy, all the more perversely relevant in this "Another Four Years?" era of alarm. Downshifting a couple gears are "Back & Forth" and "Isabelle," two gems of sunny Cali-pop with a streak of wry menace, each planting a foot or two in the neo-musichall door of Blur's most purely Pop Moments.
Proving that the proof's in the pudding and the pudding is of rich constitution, we are treated to the post-Traffic whiteboy funk-swagger of "Trouble Will Find You." The more-blithe-than-thou "Colour Us Canadian" follows in kind, closing Hard Times are in Fashion with a characteristically anti-hero chorus to swoon over; and swoon Suchan does, not unlike his hero Morrissey.
Largely recorded in small-town Kansas in both snowy winter and humid-as-hell summer, Hard Times are in Fashion is the most collaborative Koufax record yet, with a revolving cast of old friends and strangers playing on the album in Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Kansas. Produced by Michael Krassner (Califone, the Sun), the band was label-less for nearly the entirety of 2004 whilst working on the record, accumulating debt.
Indeed, it is these stark contrasts that have undoubtedly resulted in Hard Times are in Fashion. There are others, too. The opposing influences of an Eastern European father – only happy when miserable - and, by contrast, a good-natured Midwestern American mother. The fact that, much to everyone's chagrin, most lyrics and musical themes for the record were written during a brief expatriation experiment by Suchan in Prague. The idea of the Disgruntled Commuter of New Jersey childhood giving way to an Ohio high-school relocation spent on practical jokes, and all-ages showcases.
In the meantime, Koufax's world touring began this May in Germany and will continue through Summer '05. The band's tour plans will surely be as busy as Social Life 's 200-plus gig support in 2002 and ‘03.
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