Japandroids – “The House That Heaven Built”
Like other great Japandroids songs before it, “The House That Heaven Built” is a call-to-action that works beyond its surface-oriented sing-along potential. I dare you to hear this track, the first single from the duo’s upcoming album Celebration Rock, and withhold the urge to run a mile, get inked, or engage in some other impulsive affirmation of your own existence. This is a pummeling piece of anthemic guitar rock with thick, noisy chords and heavy-hitting drums that only gain momentum. It’s a rapturous head-banger, requiring only one, oft-repeated hook of clearheaded subversiveness: “And if they try to slow you down/ Tell them all, to go to hell.”
For all of the commentary regarding Japandroids and their “not particularly complex” approach to songcraft, “The House That Heaven Built” emphasizes the depth that comes along with this band’s emotional core. The song lyrically gets at life and death, love and hell, flesh and bone, within the context of forgotten nights and nocturnal, urban imagery. At the track’s three-minute peak, it breaks for a breath and quick cuts the drums. “It’s a lifeless life with no fixed address to give,” the singer, Brian King, screams, “but you’re not mine to die for anymore, so I must live.” That is some rare punk poetry, justifying all the more King’s recent nod to Paul Westerberg as an influence, and reminding us we’re lucky to still have rock singers willing to so thoroughly drain themselves into their material.
(via Pitchfork)
The Indie Intonation 