Violent Femmes
We Can Do Anything

'We Can Do Anything' (PIAS America) was something completely unexpected for me. After all, it's been sixteen years since 'Freak Magnet' (2000), and consequently, I had become accustomed to considering the Violent Femmes as something that belonged to the past. This time, it wasn't at all about that often-abused definition of folk revival that critics have always wanted to attribute to this group since their eponymous debut album in 1982. I say all this also because, to be honest, I considered 'Freak Magnet' at the time to be a truly weak album for a band that, after all, had made 'violence' a true anthem of revolt that arose and simultaneously gave voice to the frustrations and anger of three boys (and consequently, an entire generation) that emerged from the suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Something that in the end could have been inevitable if we consider that eighteen years had passed by then and that even the historical drummer of the trio, Victor DeLorenzo, had left the group, somehow mutilating it and depriving it of that rebellious innocence of the origins. Who knows. Anyway, it must have been for these reasons and also because the album was not much considered by critics that everyone, perhaps even Gordon Gano himself, had somehow thought that this experience had come to an end.

In reality, despite everything, the band has continued to play live over the years. For a period, even DeLorenzo himself had rejoined the band. So, just as it was inevitable that they might somehow be considered 'old' or at least less punk and irreverent than in the beginning, it was also normal that Gordon Gano and Brian Ritchie eventually wrote new songs and that these came together to finally become a real album.

'We Can Do Anything' is the ninth studio album by Violent Femmes, it was released in March, and with drummer Brian Viglione, already known for being part of the Dresden Dolls, completing the trio obviously usually comprised of the eternal Gano (who wrote essentially all the songs on the album) and bassist Brian Ritchie. A five-member band, The Horns of Dilemma, also supported the band during the recording phases of the album, which is worth mentioning for the 'cuteness' of the artwork, a work by Kevin Hearn, a multi-instrumentalist stationed with the Barenaked Ladies.

In essence, the contents of the album are not so different from what the trio has always wanted to propose since their debut, but it would be dishonest not to recognize that overall this, certainly easy-listening, is not something that ultimately strikes the listener much. To put it bluntly: unless you are big fans of the Violent Femmes, you can easily skip it.

Sure, songs like 'Memory', 'Foothills', 'Big Car' show that the trio still has some strength to convey with their songs; they are more than listenable and somehow evoke that folk-revivalism we've already mentioned. On the other hand, some tracks like 'Holy Ghost', 'I Could Be Anything', 'Traveling Solves Everything' are truly unlistenable, almost like a parody of what twenty years ago we would have referred to as lo-fi and today, I'm not sure what it's called anymore. 'Issues' is a nice pop-folk ballad, 'Untrue Love' a sort of nihilistic anthem...

Ultimately, I wanted to ask myself what the main content of this album was, and I came to believe that 'We Can Do Anything' is a kind of homage to those who in life always try but then never succeed or are never satisfied with the result obtained. But the doubt remains whether we are talking about dissatisfaction or if this instead aims to be a tribute to the anti-hero type of figures, and in this indecision, metaphorically, lie all the questions we can ask about this comeback at a time when, how can we not talk about it, the USA has wanted to present itself to the whole world as a country with conservative tendencies and closed to everything that is 'outside', outside the borders, outside the norms... So more than an aggressive country, a country where everything that matters is maintaining the status quo. Where everyone wants to mind their own business. Surely, this is the point, once again, there is instead a need for a certain strength and the often-called revolution, understood as a change of mentality (a revolution that is always needed and continuously and always through the ages). In the end, we need more 'violence' (calm down, I know you're Americans, but I'm not inviting you to take up arms), but the 'Femmes' in this sense have probably already contributed. However, they can send a message to the new generations. Punk and folk revivalists, garage bands, the dear old rock and roll, where have you gone? Why don't you celebrate youth and the desire for revolution anymore? Do you really realize the place you live in and the world we live in? Do you truly care about all of this? I see a lot of self-referentiality, and this is practically just crap. This album, take it as a warning: guys, you can really do whatever you want. Seize the strength that is within you, hold it tight in your hands, and unleash, spread all your 'violence' through the streets of your cities and then across the nation, around the world without being afraid to be young. On the contrary, be proud of it.