The Breeders - All Nerve Album Review
The Breeders are back with their fifth studio album, All Nerve, their first release in 10 years. While the band has lost and added members throughout the years, this album features the same line up that was present during the making of the band’s most successful album Last Splash from 1993, which featured the band’s most recognizable hit, “Cannonball.” Kim Deal leads the band once again with an approach that is reminiscent of the band’s original take on alternative rock.
After reuniting to tour for a Last Splash revival concert, the original members of The Breeders began feeling nostalgic for their earlier days of playing together, resulting in them collaborating once again to create a new album. All Nerve attempts to bring back The Breeders success on Last Splash, while also updating their sound to accommodate for all of the bandmates’s evolved performance styles. Josephine Wiggs, the bassist of the group, expressed this album was really a project that took a lot of nerve because, “…it's kind of a nervy thing to do, after all this time, to do a record that in a way is kind of a follow-up record to Last Splash.” While The Breeders are able to retrieve their lost sound for a few of the songs on the album, the album fails overall to consistently maintain the band’s dynamic presence.
The beginning of the album is powerful and holds the listener’s attention, specifically the first three songs on the album which pack a lot of punch and have a great flow. They feature the winning formula the band is known for, with strong lead vocals from Deal supported by heavy and aggressive rock instrumentation. However, after the first three songs, the tracks begin to blend together and lose their punch. While the subsequent three tracks do have their own likability and power, they seem to lose a lot of the band’s potency. The latter half of the album, unfortunately, has no real deviation and blends together to the point where the tracks feel just like filler. While the band did produce some great hits with the beginning of the album, the subsequent tracks really drag down the rest of their work, making it feel very uninspired and weightless. In some respects, the band is able to achieve a sound reminiscent of their success with Last Splash, but All Nerve overall fails to deliver as an album that rises above their previous works.
The Breeders plan to continue to work together with this same line up after the tour for All Nerve and hopefully will be able to prove with a later project that they didn’t peak with their success on Last Splash. While The Breeders do deserve praise for being able to retrieve their lost sound after so many years, hopefully, they will be able to utilize it more successfully with another new project down the line. This most recent attempt just didn’t quite meet the expectations for a successful follow-up record for an album that defined the band’s legacy.
Rating: 6/10
Scott Perdue is a freshman majoring in film/video. To contact him, email rsp5246@psu.edu.
