Something Fierce, There Are No Answers

It may sound crazy, but when I listen to power-pop/punk crew Something Fierce’s new full-length, There Are No Answers, I feel like I’m getting a peek at the heart & soul of guitarist/singer Steven Garcia; everything’s laid bare, raw and bleeding and heartfelt. And while it may make me a creepy-ass voyeur to admit it, it’s great. There’s no fake punk-rock posing here, that’s for damn sure. Garcia and his cohorts bassist/singer Niki Sevven and drummer Andrew “Red Rocket” Keith pound away at their guitars and yell themselves (tunefully) hoarse not because it’s cool or they want to make some cash, but because it’s the way they know how to comprehend the world and make themselves heard.

So, in that sense, There Are No Answers lives up to its name. It’s like a series of glimpses into the workings of Garcia’s brain/heart, exposing all the doubts, uncertainties, questions, beliefs, the whole ball of wax. And in the end, no, there aren’t any real concrete answers; there never are. That’s the big trick of Life — if somebody ever tells you they know the answers, they’re probably trying to sell you something. This album’s all the stuff we, all of us (me included), think and worry about all the freakin’ time but never say, and it’s all camouflaged in some of the coolest ’70s UK power-pop-influenced punk rock you’re likely to hear in this decade. Think Buzzcocks, think Stiff Little Fingers, think The Adverts, think Wreckless Eric, and then throw in some Ramones for good measure, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what these kids sound like.

The camouflage works brilliantly; take “Aliens” for an example. It’s an odd, touching, self-deprecating sort of love song coated in a shell of fuzzy, thick-sounding guitar buzz and thumping rhythms, with a melodic guitar calling from behind the wall of distortion like a trumpet off in the distance, and it’s all about declaring solidarity with a kindred “alien” soul. Companion song “Pretty Face” is similar, a morning-after musing on loving somebody with that same lonesome guitar calling out but with more laid-back, almost Bowie-ish vocals that come off as coolly detached and tender at the same time.

The band’s conflicted, too, or at least Garcia is. On the one hand, there’s the in-your-face, flag-waving challenge of “Hey Houston,” where Something Fierce throws down the glove to the H-town scene to quit screwing around and engaging in petty bullshit and get serious about playing, recording, and being proud of the place, but on the other, there’s the more personal “I Can’t Tell,” which is a resigned-sounding cry of discontent with the current state of life in this city. And weirdly, I totally, completely get that.

Despite the above, I have to admit that my personal favorite track is a song that’s not all that introspective or philosophical. I’ve raved about “Teenage Ruins” before, I know, but fuck it, I’m gonna do it again: Best. Punk. Anthem. Ever. Raw and fiery, a big middle finger right in the face of the too-cool, too-hip poseurs, this song is everything I like about music in Houston distilled into just under four minutes of freight-train punk rawk. It’s literally my H-town anthem; these days when I feel the need to demonstrate how fucking incredible bands in this city really are, “Teenage Ruins” is the song I whip out.

I should warn, by the way, that if you’re a fan of the band, some of the song titles are going to look pretty familiar. “Teenage Ruins” and “On Your Own” (one of my fave “sleeper” SF tracks, I should note) were both on the Something Fierce/The Hangouts split-7″ released a while back, “Aliens” and “Pretty Face” appeared previously under Garcia’s Les Veines side project moniker, and “Hey Houston,” “Why Can’t I,” and “Modern Girl” were all given away for free on the HoustonPunk.com site when it looked like the Modern Girl 7″ wasn’t going to ever see the light of day. (Thankfully, it now has, and the band’s throwing in copies of the delayed vinyl release when you buy the Answers CD.)

Even knowing that I’d heard a large number of the songs on Answers, though, it doesn’t feel like a quick-and-dirty collection of outtakes. The songs fit like this was the way they were meant to go, including the Les Veines tracks. Second-to-last song “Where You Goin Man” pulls things together even more, anthemic and wide-open, a Clash-esque story of reconnection with a long-gone friend who’d gone off the rails: “Did you kick the drugs? Did you make amends?” This time it’s Garcia looking at somebody else from the outside, wondering what the hell went wrong and how they made it through. From either angle, There Are No Answers wins.