Avi Buffalo - Avi Buffalo
I’ve made my hatred of twee music well known. Why commit solely to mid-tempo, acoustically based lullabies? Must you be so evangelically care-free? Exhibit A: The Shins; Avi Buffalo’s closest resemblance on the self-titled album. Exhibit B: Belle and Sebastian, the second genre goal post; sun-filled, mixed gender sing-a-longs. Sick.
Case closed your honour.
But at the same time, it’s not all that simple. Avi Buffalo have gone to great lengths to counter the image of singularly naive joy with titles on the album including ‘Summer Cum’ and ‘Five Little Sluts’. It’s not quite Black Flag though, rather the lyrics are young, obtuse and poetic.
‘Jessica, why do you always make it so hard / You know I’m kidding but sometimes, I feel like you’re all I’ve got.’
And it’s because Avi Buffalo are teenagers that this isn’t a pastiche of teen/tween life. It’s well rounded. Teenage life and love isn’t too cute, it’s actually pretty vile at times. 19-year-old Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg takes the lead, joined by Rebecca Coleman, Avi’s teenage crush. It’s everything most movie reviewers wrongly proclaimed Juno to be. It is just very, very sincere.
It otherwise would have been everything I hate about shoving joy, sunshine and straw hats in people’s faces. As an album it’s not ‘tainted’ (bleurgh) by one song in a minor key. It’s at every minute a more complicated representation (and for most, a retrospective) of everything you ever felt growing up; lost, excited, arrogant, brash, introspective, excited, joyful, loving, complicated, but most of all alive.
I’m conscious that pressing this teenage point too much could become irritating, not least for the band themselves. Let me be clear; anyone could have written as teenage an album. That is, a person of any age. We all were that age. It’s far more than just a good representation of how it feels to be young. I mean Blink 182 did a good job of that. Moreover, this is relatable as a sincere account of a specific point in time. And all the better for not trying to communicate or relate too hard to a demographic that is more eclectic than anyone else will understand.
I am very, very jealous of a middle-aged Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg revisiting his debut release again. For all that it translates to the listener, that day in 2050, after a hard day at the iPad construction slave camp, might be the most perfectly reminiscent of all time.
Alistair
