Third album from Jordan Benjamin blurs into nihilistic noise
When NEXT sat down wiht Grandson (Jordan Benjamin) before the release of his latest album, he stated that “it was just time for me to make the rock album that I knew I could make.” While his first two albums showcased a confident punk-rock sound, they also incorporated greater influences from other genres, most notably electronic and rap music. With Inertia, Grandson is all about that punk-rock vibe with a sound that leans more into heavy metal territory than anything he’s done before. It’s an album with a ferocious intensity that’s heavy on the social commentary that doesn’t hold back in a scathing critique of societal ills. It’s an album that firmly fits in the tradition of punk and politics that’s been pushed forward by bands from the Sex Pistols to PUP. Though what it has in ferocity, it lacks in originality and variation. Few songs on the album stand out,instead feeling like similar hard-rock riffs that aim to wear out your ears rather than offer a catchy melody that go beyond genre convention.The politics can also feel incredibly nihilistic at times, struggling to offer much in the way of hope in amongst the darkness he believes fuels society.
With the album’s opener, Bury You, the listener is under no illusion that this is anything other than a hard-rock vibe. It opens with a strumming electric guitar before layering a heavy snare drum sound on top of it that explodes with further guitar layering before grandson’s vocals take center stage. It’s a wall of sound song,powered by Grandson’s punk rock snarl,which is effective in its expressiveness when hitting the high notes of the song’s chorus. Yet, the song is also symptomatic of the album’s wider issues around a lack of musical variation, with the beat remaining frustratingly continuous throughout. This isn’t the first time this issue will arise in the album.
Self-Immolation is a song that initially suggests it’s going in a different direction, with a haunting, low-fi beat, before it explodes into a cacophony of noise that drowns out Grandson’s voice. Given the song’s focus on the real-life story of Aaron Bushnell, a U.S. Air Force serviceman who set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., in protest of the war in Gaza, its lyrics need time to breathe so that the listener can digest the realities of the story. Yet with such a noise that’s continuous within the album, it can feel tedious to hear what we’ve already heard, dampens the song’s impact as we’ve zoned out of the lyrics.The album’s closer, Pull the Trigger, also falls into this trap, whereby it points to the guitar layering having become exhausting. These songs, when listened to in isolation, make for a more pleasant listening experience, but when taken collectively, s