(V2)
By Mitch Kramer

My first exposure to Grandaddy came in November of 2000. I got on the road late to Chicago, heading to see Elliott Smith at the Vic. Grandaddy had released Sophtware Slump earlier in the year and Elliott Smith had hand picked them to open for him on the tour. At that point my knowledge of them came from some online reviews and a few mp3s. I was about 20 miles into the drive when my car started smoking and the engine caught on fire. I found out later the head gasket had blown. I pulled over and shortly afterwards a woman in her mid-forties picked me up and drove me back home. We spent the drive back talking about the live Moody Blues album she had playing in the car and me trying not to completely freak out about my parents smoking car and the show that I would never get to see.

Fast forward six years to find that Grandaddy has just released their final album. Just Like The Fambly Cat was announced from the beginning as the band’s swan song. The end to 14 years of critical praise that mysteriously lead to lackluster sales, writing, recording, touring and having almost nothing to show for it. The story of a band that has been on the cusp of making it only to call it quits right before the finish line.

The final record has been received by most as a triumph of sorts, a last hurrah by a great band. People are always kind to things that no longer exist. Just Like The Fambly Cat pulls together everything the band has learned over the past decade and a half only to regurgitate it in one 15 song album without any attempt at expanding upon it.

No one can deny the impact that Jason Lytle has had on indie music. He is a genius and his arrangements and studio prowess are almost unbeatable. How many wannabe gear junkies have listened to his records and gone out and purchased every thrift store keyboard they could get there hands on? And they still can’t seem to find out how to rewire them to get the keyboard sound in “AM 180”. It’s remarkable.

But Lytle has grown tired of Grandaddy. Tired of touring. Tired of opening for far less talented bands for almost no money. Tired of the booze, the drugs, the internal fighting. And with that his songwriting has also grown quite tired. Listening casually to Fambly Cat you hear everything you have come to expect from Grandaddy. The high pitched, almost cracking, out of tune vocals, the layers and layers of analog synths, guitars, bass, drums samples and computer blips and bleeps. But a closer listen reveals a formerly great artist using all of his tools to mask the fact that his songwriting has become the fambly cat that has gone off to die alone.

This is not to say that there aren’t a few last gasps of hope. The album’s first real track “Jeez Louise” is the jump start that Sumday needed to stay interesting. It finds Grandaddy at its most amped up, centered around distorted guitars and a hook that rivals the best tracks from Under The Western Freeway and The Sophtware Slump. But from that point the album drags on with several acoustic guitar based songs that seem to run together. It isn’t until track nine that you are jolted awake with the irritating attempt at punk “50 Percent”. From there life comes back into the album, but not enough to save it. “Elevate Myself” is upbeat, and a catchy vocal melody reminiscent of “Hewlett’s Daughter”. And then after 14 songs comes the closer “Shangri-La”. Lytle’s attempt at tying his concept record together and to declare to the world he is never coming back.

Maybe I am being a bit too harsh on this record. But you always seem to hold your favorite bands work in a higher regard. And with that comes a greater scrutiny with each new release. You feel as if the band owes you something. There was once an unexplained connection to their music and now you have try and sit through listening to the fact that they have lost what used to make them great. And seeing them choose now as the time to walk away from it all. But maybe that is what Grandaddy wants. To always be so close to the promise land and instead pack it up and head in the other direction as “Nights in White Satin” plays in the background.