If You Don’t Answer The Call, Then The Call Is Not Real

Andrew W.K. “Pushing Drugs” – After The Wolf, I wasn’t sure if Andrew W.K. had it in him to write more songs as mindblowingly great as “Party Hard” and “She Is Beautiful,” but now he’s gone and made a full album of them. He’s jumped right into the deep end, cycling through Meatloaf-ish power ballads, proggy metal, jock funk, and over the top rock opera theatrics that thoroughly destroys the efforts of virtually everyone who has tried on that style since that other Andrew wrote Jesus Christ Superstar. Nearly every track is a winner, with some highlights not straying too far away from the sound of I Get Wet (“One Brother,” “You Will Remember Tonight”), while “Las Vegas, Nevada” is like a rollicking casino blowout version of the AWK aesthetic, “Don’t Call Me Andy” is almost like the AWK version of a girl group song, and “Pushing Drugs” sounds like a showtune strolling through the rough part of town with its pumped up funk organ, horn stabs, and erstatz metal guitar. Unfortunately, Close Calls With Brick Walls is only slated to be released in Japan and parts of Asia, but with any luck, some smart label will pick this album up and run with it in the next year. Get on it, smart labels. (Click here to buy it from CD Japan.)