“The New Romance” – Pretty Girls Make Graves
(Words/music: Pretty Girls Make Graves, available on The New Romance, Matador 2003)

Something in human nature loves a wreck.  This is why traffic backs up on the highway after an accident or videos of TV personalities losing their cool circulate via YouTube.  Still, as much as we’re hard wired to watch these destructive courses, we’re even more mystified when the subject escapes certain danger.  We cheer loudly when our sports teams win at the buzzer, gasp audibly when the trapeze artists barely grips onto the swing, and brag enthusiastically when we meet a deadline with only a couple minutes to spare.  It’s has to be the combination of the adrenaline rush from the danger combined with the relief of escape.  After the fact, we sit back and take stock of the skill involved to sidestep the calamity avoided, and even in instances where we should praise cautiousness, we can’t resist the shiny allure of a successful risk.

Personally, I’m often drawn in by songs that sound like they’re falling apart but never quite reach the breaking point.  Sometimes, this threat of a meltdown comes from a band playing above its abilities (or under the influence), but other times it takes a great deal of skill to toe the line so well.  Even though I’ve heard it dozens of times, I’m always waiting for something to come unhinged in “The New Romance.”  Perhaps it’s the stuttering keyboard opening that gives way to a barrage of accents off the beat.  Meanwhile, the drums move up and down the rack toms, occasionally striking these same off beats but not enough to truly lock in with the keyboard.  Technically, both the keys and drums are on the beat, but that split second emphasis creates enough of an uneasy feeling.  When coupled with Andrea Zollo’s vocals that don’t quite fit the song’s opening feel, “The New Romance” sounds like a bad take quickly erased in the studio.  After about thirty seconds, the song shifts entirely; Zollo’s voice rises and calls her band into action and the musicians respond.  Suddenly, the keyboard part doesn’t have quite as many notes, and the open high-hat deftly accents these key notes along with the bass and guitars.  Suddenly, the same band that sounded like it needed more practice spends the last three and a half minutes tearing into the song by hitting complex phrases together, layering counter melodies against Zollo’s confident vocals, and pulling off everything they want to pull off.  They drop down to bass and drums, they modulate the last chorus, and start and stop with the best of them.  While they may have sounded like punks playing over their heads for a moment at the beginning, Pretty Girls Make Graves have every right to brag about their escape from collapse by the end of the song.

More on Pretty Girls Make Graves: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm