We’re Never Going Home by IfIHadAHiFi
Bands seeking advice on how to remain relevant as they age would be wise to listen to We’re Never Going Home, the first album in seven years from local scene veterans IfIHadAHiFi. From the first note of album opener “Gremlins on Demand,” the band is intent on making a noisy, rollicking and fun album—one that draws from the Devo-meets-Brainiac sound that they’ve cultivated since 2000.
Yet We’re Never Going Home also highlights the band’s maturation, as anthemic songs like “Death Van” and “Little Plastic Dinosaurs” see IfIHadAHiFi moving closer to the indie rock territory charted by the likes of the New Pornographers. Listening to the album’s 12 tracks is like hearing from a longtime friend who has only gotten cooler since you last spoke. But why release a new album now? “Because we finally got around to finishing it,” explains drummer-vocalist DrAwkward with a laugh (IfIHadAHiFi members prefer to go by pseudonyms).
The band started working on many of the songs that appear on We’re Never Going Home in 2012, but as band members inched towards middle age, life often got in the way of completing the tracks. In 2015, the band recommitted to working on the album; since then, he continues, “it just took that long to get a group of songs together and finished that we were happy with.”
At the same time, the band was intent on putting out an actual album. “I grew up with albums and the idea of an album as a collection of songs,” notes DrAwkward. “It’s hard for me to get out of the album mindset of ‘here’s a collection of 12 songs, and we’ll figure out what the theme is that strings them together.’” While the band understands that current music fans and performers alike may view things differently, the decision to stick with the album format for We’re Never Going Home pays off: The record successfully captures the anxiety—often rooted in politics and economics—that has become just another part of surreal day-to-day life under the Donald Trump administration. “Dad thought this was a black comedy,” begins a couplet in “Gremlins on Demand” that could serve as the album’s mission statement, “but I can’t take it anymore.”
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This sense of anxiety and the institutions that perpetuate it—perfectly captured on “The Wrist,” a dark-yet-catchy ode to work-induced carpal tunnel syndrome—sounds like something overlooked underground musician Al Burian would have written for such acts as Milemarker or Challenger. In just two lines, the band gets at the unequal dynamic that informs our current service economy: “There’s a pressure in the nerve behind my eyes/As I subordinate, and you dehumanize.” Elsewhere on We’re Never Going Home, the band tackles the angst created by climate-change deniers (“Space is Fake”); the anxiety stoked by social media (“Instagramming Olive Garden”); and the everyday uncertainty of being an adult in these trying times (“No More Jokes for Today”).
DrAwkward is aware that such subject matter can be overwhelming, stoking the sentiment that “we’re through the looking-glass and never coming back, and nothing is going to ever be the same.” This is one reason why the band chose to name the record We’re Never Going Home. Yet he is also quick to point out that such a title can also “speak to the thrill of exploration and the journey.” As bad as things have been and may be right now, We’re Never Going Home usefully reminds us, there is always something new ahead.
An album release party takes place on Friday, July 19, at High Dive, 701 E. Center St.
