ANDREW W.K.
THE WOLF
ISLAND
LINKS:
andrewwk.com
It’s been two years since Andrew W.K.’s debut, I Get Wet, crept into the mainstream, making some of us rock, others cringe and a whole lot of people in between just confused as hell. His schtick, a blend of over-the-top 1980s pop-metal glitz and beer-swilling, frat-boy bravado, won him substantial radio-play, airtime and a slot on Ozzfest, but critics still dismissed him as a joke, a soon-to-be lounge act.
Whereas I Get Wet was a bombastic, playful ode to the P.A.R.T.Y., W.K’s sophomore effort, The Wolf, is very much an earnest attempt to legitimize himself as a serious musician. A more serious album, it definitely is, but The Wolf succumbs to the same one-dimensionalism heard on his debut, leaving W.K. with yet another question to answer: Is he a one-trick pony?
The Wolf storms out of the gate with “Victory Strikes Again”, a syrupy mélange of power-chord overkill, gladiatorial chanting and over-exuberant organ playing. If ever the NFL were in need of a new theme song, this would probably be it. But without any distinction between the parts, everything sort of converges into a hodgepodge of sound, leaving us with something not quite as memorable as the NFL theme song.
“Long Live The Party” is a reminder that W.K.’s appetite for chugging down beers and ripping up the dance floor hasn’t diminished one iota. It’s still a bit overblown, but I will admit that the opening riff kind of rocks. Unfortunately, everything after that sounds like the background music of some workout tape from the 1980s. W.K’s accompanying chant, “I want to have a party/You cannot kill the party/Long live the party”, makes it sound like an aerobics class from hell being taught by a sadistic Jack La Lanne.
“Your Rules” is an anarchistic anthem powered by beefy power-chords and driving drum-beats. This is actually a decent head-banging song The lyrics are interesting too, although a tad bit on the amoral side: “You’re not my Mom and Dad/And Even They Watch Their Backs/Cause They Know What I Hate/Any Rules I Can’t Break.”
The cheesiness returns in all its glory on “The End of Our Lives”. You almost expect to hear this song in an after-school special about an underachieving high school football team finally becoming triumphant. W.K. pulls out all the stops on this one. You might, unexpectedly, find yourself pumping your fist along with him by the song’s end.
The last track, “I Love Music” is an impassioned ode -- in W.K’s quirky way – to music. He shows some lyrical creativity here, personifying music as if it were a person, but it’s not enough to save it from adhering to the same old cheese-ball formula.
So, does The Wolf confirm that Andrew W.K. is a one-trick pony? Perhaps there were some nuances that I missed, but probably not so many that someone could tell me that this album is more dynamic than I Get Wet. In the music industry, trends come and go, taking scores of careers with them. Andrew W.K.’s success has been riding on peoples’ lingering fascination with 1980s pop-metal -- that fascination will be sure to die as more time passes. Let’s hope he has the sense to reinvent himself a little bit on the next album, or he, himself, might be soon joining his heroes of yester-year in the lounges of Las Vegas.

----Eric V. White