Pushing Red Buttons, Foreign Film or Tango Dance?

Pushing Red Buttons’ Foreign Film or Tango Dance? sounds like nothing so much as a lost Mike Patton project, or possibly a series of unreleased demos from Soul Asylum. All the best aspects of ’90s alternative music are presented to the listener, and you had better be prepared for it. The album has an unavoidable sense of nostalgia for a time that might’ve been the last era when you could turn on to a major radio station and hear really good music.

That’s not to say that all the songs are locked into a past groove with nothing to offer modern listener. In fact, the album is almost absurdly current and could be considered something of a different take on Green Day’s American Idiot. Of particular note is the track “Girls Gone Stupid,” which is about exactly what you think it’s about. References to modern America’s march toward idiocracy in the name religion, television, and a pathological need for the easy peek at a boob form the crust and topping in this bitter apple pie of an album.

All of this is presented, as well, with perhaps some of the greatest rhymesmithing heard on a rock album. The songs are incredibly lyric-heavy, with few instrumental breaks. Songwriter Steve Herrig (with the occasional assist from guitarist Rich Gaglia) always has something clever to say, however. His words and Gaglia’s voice never falter, though singing along with the album might leave you a little out of breath if you don’t stretch first.

Most of the album is like having sex in the closet at work; short, hard, and absolutely awesome. No new ground is being covered as far as bare musicianship is concerned. If you’re looking for the next step in the world of tonal progressive brilliance then sorry, Mario, your princess is in another castle. This is a rock album for people who get the bad joke that is our current decade.

If there is a flaw to be pointed out, it’s a sense that PRB feels themselves above the world they are commenting on. Whereas American Idiot was a tale of someone caught in the world of mindless suburbia, Foreign Film or Tango Dance? is more of a denunciation by someone too good to get their hands dirty. Few of the songs are written from a first-person perspective, and this robs us just a little of an emotional anchor for the message. Instead of tragedy and triumph (not necessarily in that order), we get a sort of jolly nihilism. It’s a very minor point, though, all things considered.

To sum up, if you know what sucks, then you will know that this album doesn’t. If you don’t know what sucks, then this album is about you, and you are the problem.