The Junior Varsity - The Great Compromise & Wide Eyed & Cinematographic (2004-2007)

Emo rock outfit the Junior Varsity originally came together in 2002 around guitarist Andy Wildrick. An EP, various shows around central Illinois, and several lineup changes later, the group released their first full-length, The Great Compromise, on British Records. By this time, the Junior Varsity comprised Wildrick, Chris Birch (drums), Serigo Coronado (guitar), Asa Dawson (vocals/bass), and Nick Dodson (keyboards). The album received good reviews, prompting the guys to quit college to concentrate on the band full-time. They played and toured behind the record as much as possible, playing close to 200 shows following the album's release. Frequent and successful gigs in Chicago brought the band to the attention of Victory Records, eventually inking a deal with the label in October 2004. That same year, the Junior Varsity also donated the ...

The Junior Varsity's indie debut features a big and dense sound, messy on the surface but tightly crafted beneath. Singer Asa Dawson has one of those endearingly regular-guy Midwestern voices which sometimes sounds a bit like Robert Smith ("Introduction to the Faint Remembrance of a Dead and Dying Dream") and sometimes a bit like Freedy Johnston ("Peter Cottontail and the Demise of the Carrot Tree"). The band itself isn't above indulging a prog rock tendency every once in a while; the opening bars of "I Sang a Song to Be Sung," for example, almost sound like an outtake from Rush's Moving Pictures. That said, and as you may have already noticed, the band also has a less-than-endearing affinity for cutesy song titles, but luckily, you don't have to listen to a song title. Recommended.

On their second album, Junior Varsity sound something like the Police might have had they been a post-1980s heartland American rock band. They're more inclined to crunchy guitars than the Police were, but the resemblance is there in the strident declarative phrasing of the high lead singing, the frequent tempo changes, and the perky vocal harmonies. Though indebted to alternative guitar rock, they have a slightly different texture than the usual such band owing to the inclusion of a synth player in the mix. Lyrically the songs don't go anywhere too specific, aside from conveying the sense of fellows trying to sort out the world and themselves with subdued bewilderment. It's an unmemorable record that's not so much alternative rock (though it might get classified as such) as a reflection of the degree to which alternative rock approaches were becoming mainstream at the time of this 2005 release.

They look for all the world like one more angsty emo band, and there certainly is plenty of emotion in the Junior Varsity's songwriting -- the choruses tend to be big and cathartic, and the guitars tend to be big and dense, and the lyrics are earnest rather than cynical. But when the first song on the album begins with the line "Why don't we just subtract all that's in the abstract," you know you're dealing with something that's going to go just a little bit deeper than the usual unfocused anger at "this" and the usual screaming protestations of vulnerability. As rewarding as the lyrics turn out to be, though, you may find yourself being constantly distracted from them by the inventive and hooky arrangements: the tricky time changes and anthemic hooks of "Wünderdrug," the slightly goofy and subtly swinging "St. Louis," the blatantly jazzy and completely swinging title track (with horns!), and the brilliant power pop of "I Went Blind." There's an instrumental that prominently features cello and acoustic guitar -- it's pretty and it technically impressive, but it feels like a distraction from the brilliance of the songs. Very highly recommended.