Pitchfork乐评 | LP3 - American Football

American Football (LP3)

American Football

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来自美国中西部的情绪摇滚乐队中坚American Football在他们令人心神摇荡的第三张专辑中摒弃了以往的个人神话特性，步履铿锵地迈向崭新的黎明。

2019年3月21日

评分：8.1

文/Ian Cohen

译/语非

American Football have abandoned the dearly beloved house in Urbana, Ill. that graced the cover of their first two albums. That house became an avatar for youthful nostalgia, the band, and Midwest emo itself. Its replacement on the cover of the third American Football LP has an almost sinister beauty to it: a bloodshot sunrise, a creeping fog. The shot was taken about 10 minutes away in the town of Champaign and, from a certain vantage point, you might think it was the morning after the original house at 704 W. High Street was burnt to cinders. American Football might prefer it that way, as their dazzling third album does away with their self-mythology and takes bleary, bold steps toward a new dawn.

American Football乐队依依不舍地告别了他们位于伊利诺伊州乌尔班纳市的小房子，它曾经出现在乐队前两张专辑的封面上，已成为乐队、青春期乡愁情结和美国中西部情绪摇滚的象征。在第三张专辑LP3的封面上，取而代之的是一轮血红的朝阳和一团弥漫的晨雾，虽然美丽却暗藏危险。这张照片的拍摄地点距离香槟镇有十分钟的车程，你可能会联想到先前位于704号西大街的房屋被烧毁后的惨淡黎明。或许American Football乐队也会喜欢这种解读，在他们令人心神摇荡的第三张专辑中摒弃了以往的个人神话特性，步履铿锵地迈向崭新的黎明。

位于伊利诺伊州乌尔班纳市704号西大街的白房子，American Football乐队前两张专辑的封面拍摄于此，后成为当地著名景观

American Football (known colloquially as LP3, as all the band’s studio albums are self-titled) awakens with microscopic bell chimes and shudders of vibraphone as the seven minutes of “Silhouettes” swaddle the band’s guitar lattices in reverb and glitter-gray exhaust. It’s Steve Reich reincarnated as a tinny iPhone alarm on lead singer Mike Kinsella’s nightstand, going off after a sleepless night. “Oh, the muscle memory it must take to stay,” Kinsella sings, a sharp turn from the typical American Football song where ex-lovers wistfully stare into a Midwestern autumn sunset, or his work with the band Owen, where he’s staring down an Old Style at last call. And yet, a line like, “Tell me again what’s the allure of inconsequential love,” speaks to the pull of having at least felt something, an escape from the mundanity that creeps into any love of consequence.

在微弱的铃音和电颤琴的嗡鸣中，一首长达七分钟的单曲“Silhouettes”拉开了整张专辑的序幕，吉他的弦音裹藏在一团灰蒙蒙的雾气中。此情此景仿佛乐队主唱Mike Kinsella一夜无眠，在听到Steve Reich的极简主义手机闹钟铃声后缓缓起床。他在歌中唱道：“肌肉记忆与我相随”（“ the muscle memory it must take to stay”），这与American Football此前的典型作品截然不同：往昔的恋人满怀伤感地凝望着中西部的秋日夕阳，亦或是他的独立乐队Owen所呈现的情景：在酒吧打烊之际凝视着陈年旧历……但是，还有一句歌词“再次告诉我这无足轻重的爱有什么魅力”（“Tell me again what’s the allure of inconsequential love”）谈及某种情感的吸引力，得以逃避世俗的爱情。

LP3 explores the old emo adage “nothing feels good” and turns it into a kind of middle-age anhedonia. “Sensitivity deprived/I can’t feel a thing inside,” Kinsella sighs over skittering percussion and glossed harmonics. LP2, from 2016, was littered with first-thought-best-thought lyrics like these, Kinsella using his persona as Quintessential Emo Dad as a justification for his self-pity. But the title of “Uncomfortably Numb” is indicative of Kinsella’s newfound ability to wink and cry at the same time. He uses aging into his 40s to conceal a pathology so deep-rooted and repressed, it can only be understood as genetic: “I blamed my father in my youth/Now as a father, I blame the booze.”

这张专辑充分彰显了情绪摇滚所标榜的口号“Nothing feels good”，并将其转变为一种中年危机所带来的快感缺失。在轻柔的打击乐和富有光泽的和声中，Mike Kinsella喃喃自语道：“毫无知觉/内心空荡”（“Sensitivity deprived/I can’t feel a thing inside”）。而在他们发行于2016年的第二张专辑中，类似的信笔写来的歌词比比皆是。Mike Kinsella以一位“情绪摇滚经典之父”的形象为其自怜性格而正名。正如单曲“Uncomfortably Numb”的标题所示，他似乎已经掌握了黑色幽默的本领，他以自己进入不惑之年作为托词，为其长期以来的病态而开脱，并从遗传角度进行自我剖析：“年轻时我归咎于父亲/而当我为人父时我归咎于酒精”（“I blamed my father in my youth/Now as a father, I blame the booze”）。

Uncomfortably Numb

American Football  /  Hayley Williams

This isn’t the only example of late-’90s Midwestern emo heroes gracefully transitioning themselves to fatherhood, but few can match the sonic evolution of American Football—with unheralded producer Jason Cupp once again rendering American Football in brilliant topographic detail, the album is an idealized form of music to test hi-fi speakers. Emo’s fractious rhythms and plaintive, untrained vocals are completely severed from its hardcore roots and bleed into shoegaze, post-rock, and minimalist jazz—genres that do vibes more than feelings.

在90年代末叱咤风云的中西部情绪摇滚歌手开始结婚生子身为人父，类似的例子不一而足，但没有哪几个在乐曲技艺上能媲美American Football。这张专辑的制作人是不见经传的Jason Cupp，他在音场的细节上处理得很是精妙，整张专辑足以作为测试扬声器保真度的试听曲目。情绪摇滚的灵动节奏加之未经修饰的、带有伤感情绪的人声结合了自赏、后摇和极简爵士风格，给听众带来更深刻的情感共鸣。

Nearly every track on LP3 pushes out toward the five-minute mark, and where previous American Football songs were internal journeys, this album’s travel to new vistas in all directions. The flow of “Every Wave to Ever Rise” is languorous and asymmetrical like a tide pool before its outro descends into the same deep water as the Cure’s Disintegration, whereas the intro of “Doom in Full Bloom” dares to toe the vast oceans of Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The impact of recently inducted multi-instrumentalist Nate Kinsella is most noticeable on the rubbery backbone of “Every Wave to Ever Rise” and “I Can’t Feel You”’s thrumming motorik, but the wealth of textures he brings to LP3 warrants alternative superlative titles like the ones they used back in the late ’90s: The One With the Mellotron Flutes and Children’s Choir (“Heir Apparent”), The One With French Vocals (“Every Wave to Ever Rise”), The One With the Bass Breakdown and a 12-String (“I Can’t Feel You”).

这张专辑中的大部分单曲时长在五分钟左右。American Football乐队的过往作品好比一段内心之旅，而这张专辑好比羁旅漂泊。单曲“Every Wave to Ever Rise”听起来节奏倦怠、结构失衡，而在结尾部分借鉴了The Cure乐队的专辑Disintegration，如同浪花从洼地退潮到深海；在单曲“Doom in Full Bloom”中又像是在海边试探着The Smashing Pumpkin乐队在专辑Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness中的领域。在单曲“Every Wave to Ever Rise”和“I Can’t Feel You”中的韧劲十足的4/4拍节奏型中，最新入团的多乐器演奏乐手Nate Kinsella的作用可见一斑，他在90年代已经对另类音乐的演奏手法运用得得心应手，但是他的作用更多地集中表现在音乐文本的扩充和丰富，比如单曲“Heir Apparent”中使用了长笛和童音合唱、在单曲“Every Wave to Ever Rise”引入了法语演唱以及在单曲“I Can’t Feel You”中使用了十二弦琴。

音乐人Nate Kinsella，主要合作乐团有American Football、Joan of Arc

The emo diplomacy of “Uncomfortably Numb,” featuring Paramore’s Hayley Williams, is the biggest bombshell, as basically every emo band in 2019 sounds at least somewhat like American Football and/or Paramore. Williams would shatter the song immediately if she brought the wattage of Paramore’s best-known songs. Instead, she slowly and imperceptibly weaves into the second verse, a voice of conscience as Kinsella sinks deeper into despair. She tenderly tries to buoy him up during the bridge and takes over the third verse in a lower, dusky register completely unrecognizable as that of Hayley Williams, turning a duet between emo icons into a humble, heartbreaking exchange between lapsed lovers.

单曲“Uncomfortably Numb”是整张专辑的一大亮点，由American Football乐队与Paramore乐队主唱Hayley Williams合作而成。如果Hayley Williams延续着Paramore乐队的高音量演奏风格，那么她将轻易地破坏掉这首歌的结构。但她的声音轻柔和缓地融入到第二段主歌中，在Mike Kinsella哀愁吟唱之时，她的声音听起来如此清晰明朗。在乐曲的桥段中，她将沉湎于哀伤中的Mike Kinsella温柔地搀扶起来，并以低沉而幽暗的甚至近乎陌生的嗓音唱出第三段主歌，将这段合唱演变为一对关于失恋的心碎挽歌。

Paramore乐队主唱Hayley Williams

For the 15 years during which LP1 was the only American Football album, it was indie rock’s equivalent of Richard Linklater’s 1995 film Before Sunrise—a humble masterpiece of mixed emotions that offered affirmation to hopeless and skeptical romantics, believing in love at first sight while questioning whether it has to last forever to have meaning—did it really matter if they got back together again? And like Before Sunset, 2016’s LP2 capitalized on the sleeper success of its original with an outright sequel that traced the charming awkwardness of recoupling and trying to hit the familiar beats. Though hardly redundant or unnecessary, it felt a bit indulgent, too dictated by its relationship with its predecessor to establish a new narrative; Mike Kinsella himself admits it was basically fan service.

1999年后的十五年间，American Football乐队只发行了一张唱片，其中兼有失意与暧昧，一见钟情又无法经营这份感情，好比导演Richard Linklater于1995年执导的影片《爱在黎明破晓前》。在2016年，作为前作LP1的续集，American Football发行了LP2，试图重现昔日谂熟的怅惘，尽管听起来差强人意，但仍然被前作裹足不前，Mike Kinsella自己也承认制作LP2的初衷仅仅是取悦歌迷。

And the third act of each, LP3 and Linklater’s wonderful 2013 film Before Midnight, finds their leads in unexpectedly traditional roles: Jesse and Celine married with children, American Football as a regularly touring band that makes albums every three years instead of 17, all accessing a darker, deeper resonance than they ever envisioned during their immaculate conception. “I just want you home,” Williams pleads towards the end of “Uncomfortably Numb.” Maybe it’s a couple struggling in vain to believe their love is worth fighting for, maybe a wish for the kind of inconsequential, unforgettable romances of “Never Meant” or “The Summer Ends”? The latter is the reason fans make the pilgrimage to the house at 704 W. High Street, but American Football is clear about its intent from the beginning—they can go back home, but they’d rather trudge forward with the heaviest of hearts.

在Richard Linklater于2013年指导的影片《爱在午夜降临前》中，Jesse和Celine已经结婚生子，同样地，American Football也在日常生活中找到了线索。作为一支全年都在巡演途中的摇滚乐队，他们没有就此沉寂而是隔三年发一张唱片，并力图形成一种晦暗而深沉的情绪共鸣。在单曲“Uncomfortably Numb”的结尾，Hayley Williams苦苦哀求爱人回家，似乎在挣扎着挽回这段感情，又像是对于无足轻重又难以忘怀的爱情的一厢情愿，就好比他们的经典之作“Never Meant”和“The Summer Ends”,也正因为如此，歌迷们纷纷来到乌尔班纳704号西大街进行朝圣，但是American Football乐队已经笃志弥坚：他们当然可以回家，但他们宁愿满怀一颗沉痛的心而奋力前行。

Forever has to wait, I can't face another day.

-列御寇

“去吧，但愿你一路平安 桥都坚固，隧道都光明。”

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