Semisonic
Great Divide

THE REVIEW

The debut of Semisonic is exactly as I expected it. Perhaps, back in 1996, it was bewildering, and perhaps, quite the opposite, that way of playing couldn't help but feel natural and obvious. I don't remember and I don't know. Looking back after so much time, I say it's exactly as I imagined it: after the (bad) end of grunge, survival doesn't depend on those who pretend for money the same impetus and suffering, but on those who more honestly settle for something less bombastic. And this 'something' is cutting your hair, arming yourself with goodwill, taking out the contact lenses that irritate your eyes and putting back on the lunettes, shedding those flannel shirts because it's the middle of August, slipping off the combat boots and thick socks, and above all returning to a more classic writing approach. Not only to pop-rock and root-rock but also to the alt-rock of many of the fathers of grunge.

In short, this debut from Semisonic, whether you like it or not, they're still from Minneapolis, seems born to obey a very clear imperative: to mellow out. It's in this sense that a good part of the tracklist heads, starting with "F.N.T.", a melodic pop-root arranged by the then-fashionable rock beauty standards, or with "Down In Flames", decidedly tougher.

Simple melody on good riffs, or big guitars on easy stuff ("If I Run" and "Delicious"): it's not indie-punk-pop in the Weezer style, but rather grunge-root-pop. Such stuff, when rock was the music of fun, would have been anthology-worthy, but today you might feel like moving on after thirty seconds of listening. Incidentally, the most fun is "Brand New Baby", almost like a vitaminized version of a Supertramp hit.

Dan Wilson definitely doesn't dare with the sound, but he knows what melody is. In the almost title track "Across The Great Divide," among other things, he lands a chorus you've already heard... Oh God, but it sounds just like the recent "Long Road To Ruin" by Foo Fighters! Then I think about it for a moment, and I wonder: how much stuff have the unfortunate Dan Wilson and the lucky-miraculous Dave Grohl stolen here and there from past alt-rock? After all, that's how it was for many in that decade, even among the most representative. And here, in his positioning between pop-rock, root, indie-alt acoustic or thereabouts, Dan Wilson seems a bit like a crowd-pleasing Lou Barlow from some of his solo works.

The inspirational proximity to the elite of historical alternative echoes loudly in the diagonal indie of "The Prize", and everything seems even clearer. In "No-one Else," Semisonic gives a demonstration of great taste and chill sensitivity, and in the concluding "I'll Feel For You," they seem to come from sleepy London 1977 and "Animals".

There are pieces that can only be fillers, from whatever point of view you observe-listen to "The Great Divide," and depending on your approach to pop-rock, you'll end up discarding the simplest or the tougher tracks, the slower ones or those less catchy. That said, it seems to me that Semisonic in this album have shown they can do and be a bit of everything (except pure grunge) and quite credibly. As often happens, though, the more things you know how to do, the lower you fly, and in this debut, the big chart-busting singles are missing on one side, and the more "bold" tracks on the other. That is, the two extremes are missing.

Rock music doesn't seem to be made for moderates, but only for extremists, even if fake or lying; rock is obviously good for paradoxes, contradictions, like people who do nothing but whine from morning till night with rock but then have the megamillions and the gorgeous chicks. The world of rock music, in short, I believe is the only world where if you're center, you surely lose. And perhaps that's precisely why I like it more than other worlds.