There is something hypnotic about A New Chance that sticks with me. The opening song operates as something like a mantra to convince you of its own value: "You're worth something special, something real." It doesn't matter if the Tough Alliance really are special, or even real; what matters is that they make you believe it.
And they are making you believe it by doing the bare minimum. The next song, "Miami," features so few words (I think it boils down to "Let's go see / Miami" but I could be wrong), that lyrics websites think it's an instrumental. So with the absence of any meaningful "story" behind any of these songs, we are left with a feeling. Then, of course, that feeling can be spackled onto whatever you are feeling at the time.
For Tough Alliance fans in 2007, I'm guessing it was that feeling of "indie" music stretching into new arenas, such as European club, and how refreshing and exciting that must have felt. I guess Pitchfork, that decade's self-appointed tastemaker, seems to have had a penchant for TTA. That tracks. I don't know enough about modern music history to be able to quite place them in the chronological, but my gut reaction is that they fit. Like, I remember artists such as Hercules and the Love Affair being big, and then obviously LCD Soundsystem and the like, artists whose "dance" or "electronic" or "techno" or "whatever the fuck you call it" credentials were evident.
For me in 2022, I guess the Euro-techno thing scratches a certain itch, but it never really centered for me. I believe that they are real, but I remain unconvinced that they are special. It's a headspace thing—I'm so wrapped up in the dreaded prospect of writing a literature review about research done on kids with PTSD that not even the expert hypnotists in the Tough Alliance can penetrate. I wish I could jump into the Swedish beach party with full abandon, but, ya know, adulthood and all that.
This isn't news to anyone. It's not original for me to say that I couldn't full connect with some piece of music and then to turn the mirror on myself out of blame. Some weeks are better than others. Wasn't there a story about the Tough Alliance getting some finger-wagging over bringing baseball bats on stage? Maybe they should use those baseball bats on any audience member who doesn't allow himself to get in on the fun. "Thought you'd get the wink"—nope, sorry, there's just something in my eye.
Look, it's four in the morning as I'm writing this. Just forget everything I said, okay? Look at the pocketwatch as it moves slowly, back and forth. "Something special, something real, something special, something real." Try to believe it. Close your eyes, breath deep, and try to believe.
Oh gosh, this has been a disjointed review so far. I'm just rereading what I already wrote, because now all of a sudden it's five in the morning. Was I really hypnotized? Tough to say. Let's see: apparently the main point that is emerging thus far is that A New Chance isn't really special but due to unclear circumstances I'm working overtime to convince myself that it's special. Is that right?
Because even if I was hypnotized like the dude in Office Space, then it's definitely worn off by this point (like the whole second half of Office Space—that movie's script is worse than you remember it being), and now I'm listening to "Looking for Gold." I used the phrase "beach party" above, but it really applies here. This is kind of like a dancehall-type thing? It doesn't work. Honestly, I'm shocked that the bros of TTA didn't attempt an offensive patois here. They seem like the type. Harsh? Unfounded? Maybe I'm just jaded when it comes to the whistling thing. A New Chance came out nine months after fellow Swedes Peter, Bjorn and John released "Young Folks," which is the end-all, be-all of whistling in songs. I don't care if you're the Tough Alliance in 2007 or Adele in 2021—whistling is so passé.
What are TTA trying to say here? Don't let the first lines of "First Class Riot" be prophetic, boys: "There's a crowd, talking loud / but they ain't saying nothing." The weird thing is that I didn't really mind the lack of heft here—a really breezy record, all things considered—but that also explains why I was kind of sick of it by the end of the week, and why this thing isn't going to have any staying power. It's not really saying anything. It's a piece of art that acts like a tablet of MDMA—fun in the moment, and the next morning you're swearing you're never going to do it again.
And so, again, we impose our own meanings onto it. What does this album say about "indie" music in the late aughts? What does this album say about the Tough Alliance, who never made another album? What does this album say about an entire country? What does this album say about my life right now? What does this album say about how I review albums? What does this album say about the value of albums that don't seem to be too concerned with having any significant value? What does that last question say about my tendency to project my own feelings onto an album? What does it say about a review that devolves into an entire paragraph of rhetorical questions?
Yes! I am convinced now that the Tough Alliance set out to do what they wanted to do, and yet A New Chance betrays the fact that their ambitions were incredibly small. They have reached the people in the middle of the dancefloor, but to those of us around the perimeter, we're still waiting for that connection. Sure, yes, I could take the tablet and get in on the fun (and sure, yes, I found myself doing that occasionally this week), but man, what a cheap, futile way to spend your Saturday night.
"Neo Violence" is really the only song here worth a goddamn, in terms of, I dunno, subtext or whatever. "Neo Violence," in which the artists find themselves writing their own story. "This is us, distilled into its purest form," it seems to say. I admire the self-awareness, and I wonder if the band knew what that this is something they could never come back from. You only get one shot at it. TTA took their shot and disappeared off the face of the earth. They were either going to live forever or die by suicide. Kudos for choosing the latter (artistically speaking).
The point being that "Neo Violence" has a clear purpose. That purpose gives it depth. I would've liked to see it as the final song. Instead, we get "1981," which is either brilliant or trollish, depending on whether where you fall on the Eastern woodwind sounds that close out of the album. I'm tending toward the latter, since 1) 2007 was a lot closer to 2001 than it seems now, and 2) I just have this weird feeling that TTA were familiar with the so-called controversy of Islamic chants also being included, and subsequently removed, from Nintendo's 1998 N64 game The Legends of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, right? I dunno. I'm as unqualified to talk about cultural appropriation as the next fucking schmuck, but something about this didn't seem right to me. Or maybe I'm missing the wink again.
The more I write, the more I'm undercutting my original point. Yeah, I guess there is a lot to talk about, but still, none of it really means anything. In the moment, maybe it seems like there's more to it than there actually is, but there really isn't. It's a hall of mirrors.
I don't even know why I'm coming down this hard on A New Chance. I really did find myself enjoying this record throughout the week. I was in the moment. I was hypnotized. It's likely that the criticisms that I presented in this review were projections, that subconsciously I was actually critiquing my own review, which is similarly scatterbrained, incohesive, and lacking a center. But I tried to take after my pals in the Tough Alliance—if I pile on enough sounds, maybe you were distracted enough in the moment not to notice. Maybe there's value in that. Maybe there's not. Who am I to say.
GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5
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