a a r o n

Emergency & I, The Dismemberment Plan's landmark album, opens with a song titled "A Life of Possibilities." It rocks, with a fabulous riff and a driving beat, and the vocals almost have the punk sneer sound, only they lack the sneer and are instead positive. It's a nearly perfect rock song, and it lives up to its name, providing a wealth of avenues the rest of the album could follow. What makes the rest of the album so good is that it manages to go down all of these avenues, and yet it still sounds cohesive. Take the next song, "Memory Machine," which is built around the drums, with bursts of noise enhancing the music from time to time. It's a prime example of noise rock actually coalescing into a coherent song. Skip ahead a few songs and you get the manic energy of "I Love a Magician," which is an absolutely furious assault. It's the most immediate song on the album, but it loses none of its luster over time. Then you've got the hyped-up on caffeine and nervous energy of "Girl O'Clock." If you can't feel your hands shaking as if you yourself had just drunk ten energy drinks, you're doing something wrong, because that song, like all the songs on the album, truly transports the listener into the song. That's the key triumph of the album. Sure, the fact it's a collection of twelve great rock songs coming one after another is nice. That makes it a great album no matter what. What truly makes it genius, though, is its ability to transport the listener into another world for its duration. It does this with simple music and straightforward lyrics, yet another reason why it's such an amazing record. It feels "smart" even when it's so obviously simple. That gives it wide appeal; those who simply want to rock out to a bunch of great songs have an ideal album, and those who look for albums that are more than the sum of their parts will find this album fits the bill. review by Aaron N. — 9-21-08 —

b r a n d o n

This is the album that put DC's Dismemberment Plan on the map. Pitchfork's most notorious reviewer gave it a glowing 9.6, and through word-of-mouth and the band's incessant touring, they became one of the hottest indie-punk sensations of 1999. The praise was well-deserved: Emergency & I is a totally unique slab of pop-punk, dissonant and confounding while still chock-full of hooks and melodies. And music aside, Travis Morrison's unforgettably quirky lyrics round out the package. Not quite as raw or shrill as the preceding albums, Emergency & I was a quantum leap forward for a talented band. The first two cuts are indicative of several things: the lyrics, the dissonance, and the oddly prominent keyboards and electronics. "A Life of Possibilities" kicks off with a gurgling, funky keyboard-generated bass line in place of a bass guitar, as Morrison sings in falsetto above the fray. After the band winds up, there is a brief pause and then the biggest punk-rawk guitar section of the whole album, satisfying to no end. Then, "Memory Machine" ups the weirdness factor, as during its verses there is no real lead melody; instead, the immensely talented rhythm section pounds away (Axelson's bass comes in spastic, rapid-fire squirts rather than fluid chords) while dissonant electronics roil uneasily underneath Morrison's vocals, singing gems like "If they can make machines to save us labor/Someday they'll do our hearts the very same favor." The song ends in a crescendo of frantic electronics and guitars as Morrison's vocals become progressively more strident. There are three other classics of note among an album full of great songs: "You Are Invited," perhaps the ultimate emo anthem, "The City," which somehow does the whole breakup-song thing in a fresh way, and "Back and Forth," which, at risk of hyperbole, takes pure groove to levels heretofore unseen in any kind of punk music. The former song is a masterpiece of pacing (even aside from its fantastically wistful lyrics): it starts with just a simple sequenced beat and Morrison's plaintive vocals, then builds piece-by-piece, with occasional guitar accents, to a brief but cathartic full-band breakdown, before finally returning to just that beat and that voice and those tired, sad, yet somehow hopeful and uplifting words. In "The City," through a murky haze of keyboard drones, Morrison mourns, "I feel like the breeze will pick me up and carry me away/Out and over this iridescent grid/Up and away from the bar fights and neon lights/Out and away from everything that makes me what I am." This might be the most lyrically affecting song on the entire album. Finally, "Back and Forth," in contrast to these sad songs, is pure energy throughout, as the band shows off all of its considerable chops. Tricky time signatures, dissonant electronics, and aggressive riffing is the name of the game, and the band pulls it off admirably. While the D-Plan's subsequent album, Change, remains my personal favorite, Emergency & I is less conventionally melodic, more consistently inventive, and made a much bigger splash. I consider both essential. review by Brandon Wu — 4-18-07 —