For music nerds, the album title couldn’t be any more evocative. No matter what comes after that hyphen, it’s surely something that Jeff Rosenstock is has had enough of already. This isn’t exactly post-punk, or post-pop, or post-rock. It’s just post-. Well, even that title implies a bit of post-modern, and you hear that especially while listening through the long repeated sections in “USA” and “Let Them Win.” What with the chanting about being tired and poor. No matter about being poor though, this man is offering downloads for this surprise album for any price on his site.
This album went by quickly, only 9 tracks. There’s a 6-second intro featuring his best friend, breaking the fourth wall right out of the gate. This is, after all, an album that’s being made by a human being, not just a product made by a machine. The process is more important than the product in this “post-“ kind of thought, and Jeff Rosenstock buys into that philosophy. From the beginning to the end of this listen, he is here just to let us know that he is here for us, and any excess that would distract us from that is cast off in favor of a clean instrumental attack. This runs contrary to the progressive ambitions of other post-genres, or even the simpler repetitive forms like post-rock or post-bop. So it’s really not post-anything. It’s just post-.
Mike Frasier Music 