Hellmode
Album by Jeff Rosenstock
Released 31 August 2023
Power Pop / Pop Punk
Produced by Jack Shirley
Rating – 8.5/10
This isn’t Jeff Rosenstock; it’s his soul screaming through his body.
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I’ve come to realise there’s a cliché I use fairly often; referring to this or that as an artist’s “second language”. Nose-diving into the abyss of hell’s throat is Jeff Rosenstock’s second language, metaphorically via the primal angst of his panicking punk rock-power pop, genuinely in his resistance against the decay of our socio-political climate.
He regularly screams his lungs out, likely because he feels no real regard for his lungs if the wrecking ball is due to keep swinging. As a result, his music is crushing, particularly 2020 album No Dream. On the record, Jeff, suddenly with an absence of rage, opens The Beauty of Breathing with the line “sometimes I wanna take the car out on the road, and flip it into park and smash myself into a million little pieces”.
See, crushing. But his fifth album – that’s if you exclude the ska do-over Ska Dream – seems to use his crushing-ness as an outlet rather than a utility of his own scorn. Some of Hellmode’s screams are screams of healing, maybe even the screams that are “louder than the noise that drowns you out”, quoted on Doubt. The song is a serious punisher, displaying the album’s signature crushing-ness – that’s right, I have now twice said crushing-ness, now three times – on a brutal climactic section on which Jeff demands “you gotta chill out with the doubt” whilst a distortion soaked major chord rumbles downward. It’s bone-chilling, blood-curdling, and yet, it comes with a positive message: don’t doubt yourself; be yourself.
The transition from Doubt to Future Is Dumb is my favourite of the album – that’s not to say there’s a deliberate or natural transition; we just head straight from a gigantic stab-in-the-heart to something on-surface a little more breezy. But that breeziness collides with Jeff’s mannerisms, from surfing drums to a conversational vocal tone – “do you still dream about tomorrow? Does it stare at you from the past?” – to an impressive reggae/ska-tinged second verse. It too offers self-help: don’t lose hope, think in the moment.
There is a clear segue, one that connects opener Will U Still U to Head, which is neither a reference to the Monkees film or oral sex. Will U Still U is an overload of compressed distortion, a mouth pressed directly into a microphone, one that unionises not assholes, but those who merely fuck up. It is witty and pacey, but nothing compares with the pace of Head, which arrives with a drum machine, and a speeding vocal tirade that needs to come with its own Subterranean Homesick Blues-style promo video. I love it; even if it wasn’t socially aware, it’d still be stimulating.
Produced by Rosenstock regular Jack Shirley, there is a certain realness in the album’s recording style. Much like Will U Still U, Soft Living fills its innards with overdrive, like a leaking amplifier that powers some of Jeff’s more zombie-like vocal takes. Much of the album sounds natural, particularly acoustic softies like Healmode, a cute solace that wants what is best for the world, including the local coyotes. The combo of acoustic guitar and drums that rattles on Graveyard Song is the perfect, authentic cushion for Jeff’s heartbreak – “watching the world burst into flames for no reason”. Want another piece of useful advice? The song reminds us that it’s okay to defriend assholes.
Oftentimes, Jeff has exchanged his heartbreak with self-deprecation. Hellmode contains some of his deepest inner judgements, criticising his own criticisms while he himself lives well. Life Admin addresses the subject with a light-hearted pep, like a shiny toy for Jeff to distract himself with, before 3 Summers achieves the same epic, album-ending climax as Ohio Tpke, including a beautiful moment in which Jeff relinquishes words for a three-note, “ooh-ooh-ooh” closing mantra.
But the outlet still takes over, via the speedup and synth solo of I Wanna Be Wrong, and the celebratorily catchy Liked U Better, containing an unmasked guitar jangle, and decisive scream of “thank you so much”, and loads more merriment than one would expect from a song about when infatuation hurts.
Jeff manages to pull helpfulness, reassurance and friendship from the fucked up shit that influences his music. But hey, treat Hellmode however you want; as a like-minded sister to No Dream, as a stabler sister. All that matters is that Jeff Rosenstock has written and released another well-meaning companion for us in our dark times, another of the most beautiful rock albums of his generation.
Best tracks – Doubt – Future Is Dumb.
Rating – 8.5 out of 10
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