Escape From L.A. is the melancholic highlight of an open mic night at a bar equal parts morose and cheerfully boozy. Frontman Travis Wittman bears a warmly romantic update on the slacker rock singer; begging in its outward passion. Arrive at the bar mid-set and you may think it self-pitying, but you only see so much of the story yourself. If it were a movie, you’d have seen the build-up to the divorce, the divorce itself, the messy aftermath, and this moment of sadness coupled with a cathartic reunion with self-worth. In Your Memory is a pivotal movie moment in real life.
The band’s sophomore release is, sadly, Travis’s divorce album, if an album can so simply be considered ‘a divorce album’. While friendlier in demeanour than debut Living Means Reliving, the album instils fear into any happy half of a pair of lovebirds ignoring the future’s cruelties, alongside a careworn sympathy. It is also damn inspiring.
So you’ve arrived at the bar, mid-set, and maybe left your cynic’s cap in the glove compartment next to the atlas you haven’t used since 2007. Shake the cynicism and you will notice a deep humanity in Travis’s warm, romanticism, at peace with the band’s liveliness. This person is clearly feeling something, going through something.
He’s grieving, sustaining the shrapnel of loss on the title track; a remarkable, seven-and-a-half-minute epic with an anthemic, titanic chorus. While his pain is unique to him, he is building the sort of emotional tower Ben Gibbard built. His architecture is shaky and worn – though the lo-fi-ish recording of his songs does not mask their pleasantness – as his focus is on a desire to love again.
You also can’t expect pristine in a moment so human. The rumination of a mind in a life now so severely changed is going to crumble and choppily alternate, which leads to Between the Notes’ whirlwind of a finale; a sudden hurtling in tempo and spirit. It’s either an aggressive reaction to one’s loneliness, or high on some kind of stupor.
The band’s dynamics – often led by Travis’s twelve-string – dictate emotion as much as its frontman’s voice. The intense overlaps of What Remains’ guitar solo sound like an inner battle, whilst the solo of Can I Sleep Over admirably takes on a completely different harmonic journey to the rest of the song, despite slotting in theoretically. It is a story within a story, because love is seldom linear, seldom as smooth as the words of the loverboy.
Travis himself is quite smooth with his words – handy, many of the best nuggets of In Your Memory are nontraditional love songs disguised as traditional love songs. He sings “there’s only so many chords I can play / there’s only so many words I can say / but what’s a love song without a cliché?” on You Guide the Strings. Hack up the lo-fi guitars, gloss it all up, and you’ve got a ‘60s pop hit, something Ramones would’ve unironically covered.
He sings “nicotine wallpaper and a fridge full of beer / the population tanks but you’re still here” on After You’re Gone. He sees the remnants of his marriage; the lookalikes, harsh reminders, and reasons for initial infatuation, whilst gasping over what sounds like is going into a rendition of Taylor Swift’s Love Story.
I need to summarise the album, because I can’t end on the words “Taylor Swift’s Love Story” no matter my good intentions. In Your Memory combines one man’s tragedy with a survivor’s resilience, crushed and forever changed by a relationship’s end, but standing tall enough to perform a bunch of glorious, humanistic epics, risky in tone and structure, but wonderfully listenable.
Best track – In Your Memory.
Rating – 8 out of 10
