Hotel Last Resort, the 10th album from playfully abrasive folk-punk institution Violent Femmes, is a quick enjoyable listen of mostly two and a half minute songs. Singer/guitarist Gordon Gano’s vocals are front and center, the heart of the tracks – one of the band’s strongest assets if you’re into that sort of thing (which, if you’re an existing fan then you definitely are) and grabbing you by the nerve endings if you’re not.
For those not already familiar with the Femmes, this probably won’t be the point of entry that provides a portal to instant fandom, but it’s a fun and worthwhile listen. A steadfast trio, the band changed up the configuration for this album, consisting now of lifebound stalwarts for nearly 40 years (more or less), the unfuckwithable core of Gano and bass player Brian Ritchie, plus two members of the Femme’s longtime auxiliary arm, the Horns of Dilemma, John Sparrow (percussion, drums) and Blaise Garza (saxaphone, keyboards, etc) as permanent members to round out the line-up.
Opening track and meta single-about-a-single “Another Chorus,” one of two songs on the album that was written shortly before going into the studio, starts right in with jangly acoustic guitar and Gano’s familiar voice before gang vocals chime in on the chorus about singing a chorus. The occasionally overblown horn adds just the right amount of emotion and the keys stabbing through the bridge set up the rollicking sing-a-long about boring choruses.
Television’s Tom Verlaine guests on the lead single and title track, which feels like an honest reflection, possibly on change and aging, somber and genuine even when cracking wise. The relatively wordy single is the longest on the album by far (~5 minutes), its noir tones reminiscing darkly and describing what feels like loneliness, especially in the rapid fire lyrics: “I’ve become invisible / Because one is not divisible…I pander to the few / I divide myself by 2 / Half of half is still half / And a chortle is still not a real laugh.”
The album’s third single is a re-recording of “I’m Nothing” off Violent Femmes’ sixth album, 1994’s New Times, with vocal contributions by pro skateboarder Stefan Janoski, a longtime fan who considers the song one of his all-time favorites. In collaboration with Janoski, Violent Femmes have also designed a new Nike shoe inspired by the track’s lyrics.
Let’s momentarily circle back and reiterate that Violent Femmes have designed a shoe for Nike. Not that this is strange in 2019. The extremely common practice of forging commercial bonds with corporate America is becoming one required facet of the way a band makes a living in the streaming age, even for those that occupy lanes philosophically aligned with punk or folk (or both!), but it’s a practice fraught with some tension, especially for bands that came up before such tactics were deemed necessary.
A four-year break-up was actually precipitated by a dispute between Gano and Ritchie when Ritchie was upset (litigiously!) that Gano sold advertising rights for “Blister in the Sun” to Wendy’s for a chili commercial. They also recorded a commercial for Nickelodeon and a 34-second cover of the SpongeBob SquarePants theme in 2002, so they’ve been going down this corporate-friendly path for awhile. A pair of skater shoes actually makes a lot of sense, comparatively, and I just might stop to check them out. (Sorry!)
The Femmes’ rendition of “God Bless America” to close out the album is weird but exhibits a strange power. The minimalist track features Ritchie’s bass octaving Gano’s vocals with a super low contrabass saxophone drone vibrating under the track, and after the standard two and a half minutes, the whole song fades and starts up again as an instrumental jam. Other album highlights include the electric guitar lighting up the Femmes’ version of the Garden of Eden creation myth in “Adam Was a Man” and the delicate saxophone on “Paris to Sleep” (“I came to Paris to sleep”), plus the killer line “You can steal a kiss but it will not keep my love” in “Not Okay.”
Hotel Last Resort is a standard Violent Femmes album in a highly enjoyable iteration. The Milwaukee band is still doing what they do best (cleverly satisfying rapid-release folk punk capsules) with the same facsimile-free quirks (Gano’s unreproducible vocal intonation, a longstanding relationship with improvisation and moments of freeform jazz thanks to the Horns of Dilemma, semi-bizarre commercial synergistic cross-collaborations), and this time, they’re mixing their standard cocktail of three parts acerbic slash-and-burn brilliance with one part well-executed introspection. It’s a solid representation of what they do well and an impish and occasionally truly insightful good time.
