The Weeks
Easy
Reviewed by: Max Miller
In his book on music rivalries, while discussing the eternal struggle between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, music critic Steven Hyden says, “Any time a new band comes out that promises ‘to bring back rock,’ that band will look, sound, and act like the Stones from ‘68 to ‘72. That shit is elemental.”
The Weeks, a denim-clad Nashville four-piece, don’t necessarily sound or act like the Stones, but they certainly look somewhat like them. They often do sound like the Strokes, a band which definitely follows Hyden’s proclamation. The only aspect of the Weeks’ sound that belies the Southern roots they like to emphasize — the group originally hailed from Jackson, Mississippi before moving to Nashville — are the vocals of frontman Cyle Barnes, which have a country-rock tinge that somehow recalls Counting Crows vocalist Adam Duritz.
But do the Weeks aim “to bring back rock,” as Hyden puts it? You’re darn tootin’. Casting aside the flashy production techniques used on 2013’s Dear Bo Jackson, the band stripped their sound to its rudiments on Easy. As bassist Damien Bone bluntly puts it, “We just wanted to make a rock record.”
In that regard, the Weeks surely have succeeded. Opener “Talk Like That” sounds like the kind of radio-friendly rock song that could have been a hit back in the days when rock songs actually could be hits. And speaking of the radio, Easy features a de facto ode to the dying medium in the form of “Hands on the Radio.” Populist rock music has a strange relationship with the radio nowadays. In the early ‘70s, the heyday for artists that form the canon bands like the Weeks worship, radio strayed away from the harder edge of the spectrum in favor of pop. It’s truly a testament to the rise of “classic rock” as a radio format that younger bands now revere the medium that once kept their heroes down.
Tunes like “Ike” and “Ain’t Dancin’” sound tailor-made for the kind of kids who are alienated by Taylor Swift and Migos tracks on the radio — the kids who switch over to classic rock radio and ponder why their peers don’t see the superiority of Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Then again, do these kids even still exist? Do they listen to the radio, or do they just listen to Spotify? And, if so, do they even put up walls between Drake and the Doobie Brothers, or do they just take it all in equally? Maybe the Weeks aren’t making music for these kids at all, but, rather, for these kids’ dads.
Much of Easy truly does have a safe, dad-rockin’ sameness about it. Highlights like the Thin Lizzy-esque “Start It Up,” the groovy, glammy “Bottle Rocket” or the almost post-punk “Sevens” never fully distract from how safe the Weeks play it on this album. Even the album’s strongest cut, “Gold Doesn’t Rust,” is a cheesy ode to encores. Tellingly, Barnes admits in the chorus, “If everyone’s okay, we’d like to play one more / It’s not for you / This one’s for us.” The Weeks’ music definitely skews a little self-indulgent; something far more fun for the band to play than for the listener to hear.
The unspoken caveat, I think, in Hyden’s description of bands who want “to bring back rock,” is that Hyden is an ardent supporter of bands with this mission. His love of bands like the War on Drugs and Japandroids attests to this, and the popularity of those bands proves he is not alone.
The Weeks could easily join this class of artists — I’m just not sure if they’d want to. Looking nostalgically to the past always yields diminishing returns. Bands who truly love rock should be looking into how to progress the genre toward the future, not how to bring it back. Obviously, that’s a lot harder. But if the Weeks truly want to stick around like their heroes have, they need to find a way to tap into their own sound, deserving of longevity.
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