Trying Not to Have a Thought

Fans of Algernon Cadwallader during their original run claim lifelong bragging rights for having seen them play a late-2000s basement show with sweaty floors and a fisheye-toting Flickr photographer—and they probably have the blown-out YouTube video to prove it. Across the Northeast, the Philadelphia emo band paid its dues at every VFW hall, youth community center, and dilapidated DIY house that opened its doors. In the seven years before they called it quits, Algernon were a refreshingly haphazard and wildly fun live act. The longer the crowd bellowed like a football team to open “Serial Killer Status,” the higher scrawny teens flung themselves to “Katie’s Conscious”; the faster the drive home through pitch-black suburbs, the stronger the urge to burn a CD for your friends so you could scream “If fucking up feels right/Then fuck it up” together.

But statistically, the more impressive feat is having seen the band at a music venue with an active permit—bigger capacity, rarer opportunity. By the time Joyce Manor tapped Algernon Cadwallader for a fall 2012 tour, the promise of seeing them play inside a proper establishment felt monumental: Algernon on a raised stage? Through a professional sound system? Walking up to the storied Cambridge club T.T. the Bear’s, I remember doubting the run of show on the whiteboard; in what world were Joyce Manor, West Coast pop-punkers getting message-board backlash for their lo-fi pivot, headlining over Algernon, East Coast darlings already being cited as an influence on their peers? Watching with a clear view, mic stands no longer in danger of being knocked over by a sudden convulsion of the crowd, I thought Algernon Cadwallader were poised to blow up. Now that they had a stage, how were they going to use it?

Your guess was as good as theirs. Four days later, Algernon Cadwallader broke up. Members dispersed to Hop Along and Dogs on Acid, and a new wave of emo bands tried to recapture the twinkly guitars and frantic poetics of the soon-to-be-pegged “revival” forefathers. But 14 years after their last album, Algernon Cadwallader finally return to answer the question. Trying Not to Have a Thought is the first LP with their original lineup—vocalist-bassist Peter Helmis, guitarists Joe Reinhart and Colin Mahony, and drummer Nick Tazza—since their 2008 debut-turned-emo classic Some Kind of Cadwallader, and their first release since 2011’s Parrot Flies. It’s a comeback album that reintroduces four friends who still crave technical prowess and percussive playfulness. More than that, it makes the case for why emo was never just about adolescent angst, but the purity of feeling alive in the present.

Though admired by a range of emo and indie rockers, Algernon Cadwallader originally considered themselves an off-kilter punk band, and they fully embrace that identity on Trying Not to Have a Thought. It’s their densest and loudest album, even if each member sounds more controlled on the whole. From the gnarled rock propelling “Shameless Faces (even the guy who made the thing was a piece of shit)” to the artful, ketamine-fueled post-punk of “noitanitsarcorP,” all four members sound energized, focused, and inspired by each other’s ideas. “There is no ‘I’ in Algernon,” Helmis yells with relief on the title track. It’s a testament to the band members’ tight bond and how their live shows allow the public to share in it.

In the band’s first run, Algernon Cadwallader were sometimes criticized for being too in thrall to their influences: Cap’n Jazz, Joan of Arc, Owls. But even that intended bullet bounces like a rubber band in the emo scene, where the Kinsellas are venerated like saints and simultaneously recognized for how they’ve continued to evolve as musicians over the years. Algernon would like to attempt the same, and the development of Helmis’ vocal tactics on “What’s Mine” alone warrants the reunion album: He mumble-speaks like Phil Elverum, switches to pining long notes, and lets melodic hiccups accent his transition from scream-yodel to full-on yell. Meanwhile, Tazza continues the tradition of Analphabetapolothology’s childlike percussive loafing by casting a prism of pastel textures over “Koyaanisqatsi” with triangle, shakers, and diaphanous drum patterns.

Some Kind of Wonderful: Algernon Cadwallader on Their Reunion and New Album

Reinhart, who also mixed the album, trains the spotlight on the precise jabs of a buttoned-up fencing match with Mahony, his co-guitarist. The two dance around one another in equal volume, light on their feet, with intricate finger-tapping and rhythmic interplay that cherry-picks from Midwest emo, bluegrass, jazz, and fingerstyle guitar. In “You’ve Always Been Here,” atop Tazza’s steady beat and Helmis’ bassline, Reinhart and Mahony ramp up until their two guitars sound like four, then six. The intentional frenzy of Algernon Cadwallader’s past work is refined into contemplative passages (“What’s Mine”) and sugary Pop Rocks explosions (“World of Difference”) that raise your heart rate without mandating participation in the mosh pit. Tempting as it is to credit that melodic punk push as being solely Reinhart’s handiwork—he’s the band’s not-so-secret weapon, a producer for Beach Bunny and Modern Baseball—a closer ear takes notice of the crucial choices Mahony makes in each of his complementary guitar parts.

By waiting to return to the drawing board, Algernon Cadwallader built Trying Not to Have a Thought on their own time and in their own way. The mood is grateful and reflective, but it doesn’t dull their unruly style. The title track, the album’s centerpiece, introduces an effortless, freewheeling hook that drips with bittersweet nostalgia as Helmis belts mouthfuls like, “I’m trying not to get caught in the backwash of an artificial world constructed by bloodsucking motherfuckers in an anti-social coliseum.” He’s having fun, but he’s not putting on blinders for the sake of a good time. “Hawk” opens the album by grieving a high school friend: Helmis remembers roughhousing and playing with pocket knives together, never imagining they’d run out of time. “A few of your favorite clothes from your high school wardrobe/Are the closest thing to having you back,” he sings. His bandmates know exactly how to brighten pockets of the song to match Helmis’ elegy: “When we had the chance/We did it right.”

In the late 2000s, scene commentators viewed Algernon Cadwallader as nonsensical lyricists who chose imagery over storytelling. Trying Not to Have a Thought goes a long way toward countering that perception. Helmis may sing with a goofy cadence, but he’s serious when critiquing wealth disparity, TV brainrot, and American colonialism. In “Million Dollars,” he satirizes the so-called logic of anti-homeless architecture in Portland. On “Attn MOVE,” he turns his attention to Philadelphia’s infamous 1985 MOVE bombing, when police dropped explosives on a local Black activist group, killing 11. “Some black clouds never go away,” he reflects. “Just hover in place and change their shape right in front of your face.” The band has expressed regret over its past disengagement from political issues; now, they’ve found new commitment to push for change and collective understanding. That they do so with the evocative rush of joy, longing, anger, awe—for Algernon Cadwallader, that’s called playing the hits.

Algernon Cadwallader: Trying Not to Have a Thought

$25 at Amazon