I don’t typically listen to singles. I prefer to listen to albums from front to back, ideally in one sitting. Whole and complete in their entirety. Sometimes if it’s an especially good record I’ll run it back and let the last song loop into the first for a repeated visitation.
All of that went right out the window when I heard that Michael Cera Palin dropped a new single from their forthcoming much anticipated debut album, their first music in seven years. “Wisteria” released in January is nothing short of a rock anthem. Driving verses hit hard and the chorus hits harder. Hearing that single was a real ‘we are so back’ moment. If not for the repeated lines ‘Sorry I’ve been keeping you up’ you would hardly know this absolute banger was actually a breakup song.
We Could Be Brave opens up with noodly guitar lines on “Feast and Famine” which meander along with some laid back drums joined by a soft voice. It’s not long before the tempo switches up and we get some punk to go with that pop. Towards the climax they casually let out probably my favorite line from the album: ‘Fuck the landlord you can’t tell me where I live!’
Michael Cera Palin’s first full length is an exercise in extremities featuring their shortest and longest songs to date at 96 seconds and almost 12 minutes. We Could Be Brave also showcases some of the softest moments of delicacy and harshest exhibitions of raw screaming feedback Michael Cera Palin have employed to date. Over the course of the record few stones are left unturned in expressing a variety of emotions in ways that are new and exciting for a band that was once seen as something of a curiosity. Far from being a flash in the pan, Michael Cera Palin’s debut shows that they have the kind of staying power and commitment long term musical projects demand.
The record has actually been the work of many years and was a time of personal growth for the band. After a period in which they had broken up each member was forced to confront their identity both within and without the band and the environment that goes along with writing, recording, and performing music. Vocalist Elliott Braban explained in a recent interview with Noizze UK: ‘After that last release, we broke up and so each of us had to fully reconsider what our relationship to writing songs was and how we were going to go forward with music before realizing we were going to be back together and further exploring this. And I think that led to a lot of self discovery.’
“Tardy” checks a lot of the quintessential emo boxes: cheeky sound clip, Say Anything-esque spoken word, emotive gang vocals. Is it still a cliché if it rules? In any case the tune is an absolute bop. Showing that Michael Cera Palin are still just as comfortable within the pop punk space as indie rock or delving towards the rougher edges of screamo and hardcore. See “Crypto” for even more of this poppy sweetness on full display. “Gracious” opens up all AJJ acoustic folk punk and builds to a swelling post-hardcore anthem. Weaving in and out of various styles: spoken word, yells, screams, soft folky whispers, and pop infused sing-alongs. The vocal delivery is superb in all the many forms Brave takes on.
In contrast to their early work on previous EP’s, Brave has a clarity of purpose and presentation. Through crystal clear production with a focus on refined vocal work and instrumentation Michael Cera Palin have moved past the sometimes murky sketch like nature of their early work. They’ve grown as people and as artists in the intervening years. One exception breaks free of the well thought out nature of the album when “A Broken Face” hits like a Joyce Manor blitz from hell. At just over a minute on a record of mostly four-ish minute songs, it’s a refreshing change of pace to launch into the first half of “10:38/Doe”. Which is this sort of Jekyll/Hyde dual natured track having some of the heaviest and quietest moments found on Brave.
Throughout We Could Be Brave song titles are cleverly entwined and embedded within their lyrical expositions. ‘Come feast or famine this is where I’ll be, dying out among the living; So gracious bearing me a rear view of what comes after; Despite unraveling I’m so tightly wound, despite the spiral I just couldn’t come around.’ This kind of word play goes beyond basic fan service to once again point to the deliberate execution of this record.
The guitar work is still all the top tier math tinged twinkly lines we’ve come to expect of this brand of emo. But it’s the drums I was especially taken with on the instrumentation this time around. Near death metal blastbeats at points and more restrained jazzy syncopation at others. For just a few examples of this astounding percussive wizardry see the opening of “A Broken Face”, the end of “Gracious”, and throughout “Wisteria”.
The album artwork, which I swear would be right at home as the backdrop for one of those chillhop YouTube playlists, prominently features a lone deer amongst a somewhat apocalyptic landscape. Deer are constantly used in symbolic visual representation and for good reason. They are a striking image instantly evoking wilderness and innocence. In this case the artwork is much more personal, inspired by a scene in the parking lot shortly after a visit to Elliot’s grandmother in hospice. The track “10:38/Doe” recounts these tender moments in candid and heartbreaking detail. Something as simple as a deer glimpsed wandering on pavement can suddenly be representative of so many things. Spirit transcending physical limitations or trying to carry on bravely in spite of horrible loss. Meaning oozes out at the seams of this album filled with heartfelt themes and motifs contemplated with care.
Closing out an emo record with a gargantuan 12 minute finale takes some massive… confidence. There are so many ways this could go horribly wrong, but it just doesn’t. Instead it goes tremendously right. Not a moment is wasted or dragged out even in the more mellow sections. I’ll do my best to resist the urge to dedicate an entire feature length article’s worth of gushing dedicated to this single track, but I’m only human. To put things into perspective the mammoth title track is almost as long as Michael Cera Palin’s entire debut EP.
After a restrained opening there’s the savage delivery of the biting line ‘Don’t feel much better is better than nothing.’ Then a wall of discordant noise hits like a ton of bricks. It feels like drowning, it feels like unburdening, it feels like rebirth. When the cacophony subsides a downbeat comes across to meetup with the lines ‘It’s moving at a glacier’s pace / I need a higher dosage.’ Things start to pick up gradually and the line subtly changes ‘It’s moving at an anxious pace / I need a higher dosage.’ One of a few fourth wall breaks hidden within the album; it makes for some of the most perfectly timed moments I’ve heard anywhere. There’s a sort of crunchy breakdown portion before a quieter interlude section. Then this monster closes out with arguably the best three minutes on the whole album culminating with a building repeated chorus of ‘We Could Be Brave!’.
“We Could Be Brave” is self-referential in that part of the point of its epic structure is in its very length and thematic concerns with time and perseverance. Again in Noizze, Elliot elaborates:
‘So the first part of that song I came up with while we were at practice, and we were recording everything we were doing at practice for the most part at that point, because we were just in writing mode and I knew it was going to be the beginning of the closer for the album. I did not know how long that song would be. I specifically wanted to use the composition of this to convey how non-linear healing is and how non-linear finding a path forward is. The fact that you’re not sure if the rock bottom you experience right now will be rock bottom and still finding your way through that was the main thing I wanted to get across.’
(Did I map out the sections of the song on a piece of paper like Charlie trying to unravel some vast conspiracy? Absolutely, I did.)
In some ways “Wisteria” is the true closing song on the album and “We Could Be Brave” acts as a sort of coda. If you listen to the record as two distinct halves you’ll hear everything that came before the title track echoing within its eternity. The scope of this black hole song is massive enough to draw in every theme, every overture. All refrain, refract, and reflect within its maw.
Rising up within the swelling tide of fifth-wave emo circa 2015 with a meme name Michael Cera Palin could have just as easily ended up one of the myriad short lived bands to drop a couple EP’s only to fade away into obscurity. Or release that one cult classic album and break up a classic screamo punk formula. Instead Michael Cera Palin is back seven years later having leveled up in every possible sense. Presentation, production, performance. This is the roaring sound of a band firing on all cylinders. We Could Be Brave is a triumphant return.
