Relient K -- Two Lefts Don't Make a Right...but Three Do

6/10

You've gotta hear this band! said every teenager I knew in the early 00's in regard to Relient K. So I did hear the band...and I was unimpressed. This is likely due to the fact that I was not a teenager, but a high-falutin college student and DJ. Goofy pop-punk songs about the evils of Marilyn Manson and Thundercats did not impress me like they did the first wave of millennials. However, those millennials were also my radio listeners, and Gotee records sent my station approximately 5,000 copies of the Relient K's 2003 release (and third album, overall) Two Lefts Don't Make a Right...but Three Do. I don't know what I did with all of those, though one copy, the blue one with the wrecked pickup, still survives on my music shelf. Without even listening, the multiple album cover concept impressed me--four different cartoon illustrations of a car wreck, each with their own hue. Unfortunately, the music, while better than the band's previous work, didn't impress me as much.
I came up on early Tooth and Nail punk bands like MxPx and Slick Shoes--Relient K felt like the diet version of that. Vocalist, Matt Theissen, seemed to not think the way that I did, and I had a hard time connecting with his lyrics...but still, there's something here.
"Chap Stick, Chapped Lips, and Things Like Chemistry" is a high energy opener, with a bridge straight out of the "slow-it-down" blink-182 handbook. It works. Second track, "Mood Rings," however, doesn't, and seems even more regressive and immature to me now than it did in 2003, with the chorus, "Let's get emotional girls to all wear mood rings." I guess it's supposed to be funny. One of these days, right in the kisser.
Thankfully, the next duo of songs features far more maturity, from the piano-lead of "Falling Out," to the more grown-up, "get knocked-down and get back up again" sentiments of the rocking "Forward Motion." "Forward Motion" also features a pretty rad guitar line, and some cool tempo changes.
The album then travels on the immature route once again with "In Love with the 80's (Pink Tux to the Prom). I grew up in the 80's, and this song draws far more from a lesser John Hughes film than actual 80's life. Things get worse, for me at least, on "College Kids." As a college senior who had just put a hard four years work in, the last lyrics I wanted to hear were "and that's why i say oh no! not for me not for me call it torture call it university." I loved college and 14 years later I'm still on campus--again, me and this vocalist weren't on the same page.
"Trademark" is better, if unremarkable, as is "Hoopes I Did It Again."
But what is this? "Over Thinking" is a legitimately great song. Great enough to perk my 2003 ears up from all the Radiohead, Björk, Portishead, Sigur Ros, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor I was listening to. It's got a great, unexpected piano-break 1:05 in, a jamming bassline throughout, and multiple bridges--a true wellspring of creativity on the band's part.
"I Am Understood" is a solid follow-up.
"Getting Into You" then comes as the album's ballad, the cheese a bit too soft for my taste. After a short voice recording and the brief but fun "Gibberish," comes "From End to End," one of the album's more aggressive tracks, with a nice, cathartic bridge.
TLDMARBTD closes with "Jefferson Aero Plane," proving that Theissen excels best at "despite the circumstances, I'll be okay" closers (there's more of these to come in the band's catalogue). It's a very well-written track with a carefree feel, and some nice gear changes and ping-ponging between the guitars and the piano. It, along with this album's other stronger tracks, proves that this band has promise beyond pop-punk-lite songs about Saturday morning cartoons and forcing females to wear mood-revealing rings--and also that maybe non-millennials can one day enjoy their music, as well.


2003 Gotee Records
1. Chap Stick, Chapped Lips, and Things Like Chemistry 3:10
2. Mood Rings 3:18
3. Falling Out 3:51
4. Forward Motion 3:57
5. In Love with the 80's (Pink Tux to the Prom) 3:08
6. College Kids 3:27
7. Trademark 3:54
8. Hoopes I Did It Again 3:12
9. Over Thinking 4:08
10. I Am Understood? 4:23
11. Getting Into You 3:24
12. Kids on the Street 0:26
13. Gibberish 1:45
14. From End to End 4:37
15. Jefferson Aero Plane (includes hidden track "Silly Shoes") 12:52