For Against – Never Been

For Against is a post-punk/dream pop band from Lincoln, Nebraska that’s been around since 1984. They’re some real anglophiles, their sound is total 4AD worship, which is great. It’s just for a band that’s been around as long as For Against, I figure I would have at least heard of them by now. I haven’t at all, and I was hoping that this was some uncovered gem like when I discovered This Heat. Well, they aren‘t This Heat, but they aren‘t terrible either.

Never Been starts off with a song called “Sameness”, which is kind of how I feel about every song that follows. The song sounds like it’s written and performed by a band in its inception – kind of sophomoric. And this is indicative of the rest of the songs on the album; they just kind of plod along, and as lush and gorgeous as they may be it’s as if the listener is meant to see this from the safety of a passing bus window rather than be engulfed in it. The fifth track “Of a Time” is the slow burning centerpiece, followed by the airy piano piece “Per Se”. The track that follows, “Specificity”, is arguably the best song on the album, but it feels as pokey and formulaic as the rest of them. No real oomph.

Never Been is an album full of nice compositions, but remember that nice used to be a negative word. None of it is challenging – it’s all very unassuming and, well, boring. It doesn’t do anything new or exciting and it seems complacent in its melancholy.  It feels like the songs are made by twenty five year olds, not a twenty five year old band, and maybe this is why they’ve remained in obscurity all this time.