Samiam, Whatever’s Got You Down

I can remember that the first time I came across Samiam, back in the early ’90s, they were labeled a punk band, and the tag threw me off right from the start. For one thing, vocalist Jason Beebout actually sang, something I honestly didn’t expect from a punk band (at the time, at least), and beyond that, the guitars, while distorted, still sounded surprisingly clean. At their core, though, what really made the band stand out was the fact that their songs really weren’t “punk” songs — they were pop songs with a lot of distortion and a fair dose of testosterone, which is to say that they pretty much anticipated the emo explosion of the late ’90s by a half-decade or so. Along with fellow Bay Area-dwellers Jawbreaker, Samiam was one of the few bands of the post-Green Day pop-punk frenzy with songwriting abilities to match their overall energy level, earning comparisons not so much to their contemporaries as to classic ’80s punk bands like Hüsker Dü, Fugazi, or the Replacements.

The songs on the band’s major-label debut, Clumsy, were raw and angry but still sweet and heartfelt, and despite some broadening of the stylistic palette, their latest, Whatever’s Got You Down, doesn’t stray too far from that blueprint. The anthemic opener, “When We’re Together,” blasts in with authority, combining Sergie Loobkoff’s crunchy-but-smooth guitars with Beebout’s cigarette-shredded vocals, and the album chugs along from there, careening (sweetly) through eleven more burning, impassioned pop songs slathered in distortion. There’s the somewhat reassuring “Take Care,” which features a nicely gentle prechorus, “Get It Right,” which chimes and shines like Jimmy Eat World’s most gorgeous, most crystalline moments, the pleading “Do You Want To Be Loved,” “Are You Alright,” which is probably the closest kin to Samiam’s pop-punk cousins (like Pennywise or Green Day), and the sharp-edged, bitter “Holiday Parade.”

Throughout, Whatever’s Got You Down sounds up-front and immediate, with a head-bobbing, toe-tapping, gotta-do-it-right-now urgency propelling both the music and the lyrics headlong down the path. Some of the tracks (“When We’re Together,” in particular) sounds so live it could’ve been taken from a sweaty, frantic live show somewhere out on the road.

Be warned, by the way, that on the first few tracks, Beebout’s voice may take a bit of getting used to. His adenoidal yelp has gotten rougher, if anything, since the band’s major-label debut, Clumsy, these days coming across like The Outfield’s Tony Lewis (Play Deep is a good album, dammit…) fronting, well, a pop-punk band.

Now, while the album’s good throughout, I should note that a few tracks still manage to stand head and shoulders above the rest. “Storm Clouds,” for one, is intense and distinctly Smiths-esque, with its droning guitars and warning lyrics, and “Anything” comes off like the best possible marriage between candy-sweet ’80s pop and Jawbreaker’s Dear You. “Come Home,” on the other hand, is softer, a drifting, chiming, heartfelt plea that slows things down a bit, as does “Lullaby” when it swings near to Foo Fighters territory. Best of all, though, is “Believer,” which lunges from melancholy, contemplative pop into a stadium-sized roar worthy of The Who, dissecting in the process Beebout’s inability to quit trusting people.

God damn, I’m glad these guys are still together. Everything I loved way back when is still firmly intact: the soaring, swooping, impassioned vocals, the raw, punkish-but-still-melodic guitars, the driving rhythms, the solidly-constructed songs, all of it. I have a sneaking suspicion that this disc will be residing in the car stereo for a good long while.