Is it cool to name every album after your band? American Football are finding out with their fourth album, American Football. It follows American Football. Don’t confuse that with American Football, though. This latest effort from the band, whose name remains difficult to remember as there’s nowhere that it’s noted all that clearly, is a reminder of their existence. They’ll never come out of the shadow of their debut, much like Wilco may find themselves forever tethered to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Can American Football better themselves? Not quite, but their work remains enjoyable, if a little overstated by those more dedicated to the band than most. A few moments of silence open Man Overboard, the first of ten new songs from American Football. They may have hindered themselves with this naming process, like a band calling themselves Various Artists, but then the appeal is the seeking out of new music, is it not? That’s what you can get from this fourth self-titled project by American Football. The thrill.
Are we not all overboard? Man Overboard is a magnificent opening song. This is an album that doesn’t look back but wishes to rival and eventually topple that hard-hitting debut piece. There is some success to be had from American Football in doing that, and much of it comes from sounding tighter and stronger than they did way back when. Details of ex-wives and rejection run rampant through this fourth album from the band, and often that state of melancholic reflection is shattered by the post-rock sound American Football has made their own. It happens on No Feeling, where the numbness in the opening moments is eventually thrown out. We are shaken out of that stuffy suffering in the same manner as frontman Mike Kinsella. There are moments, like Blood on My Blood, where the intensity of the occasion just doesn’t match up with the intent of the imagery presented by Kinsella and the band. A lighter touch here does not do the song justice.
A minor fault of the album and one that isn’t repeated quite as bluntly as Blood on My Blood. Follow up Bad Moons is the post-rock blowout American Football fans were expecting. There are moments of this fourth American Football album that feel truly lonely. The One with the Piano is a real shock to the system. A stripped-back and slowed piece of work that clashes with the rest of the album. That clash is its beauty. Sporadically great work is what American Football is, and it’s a stretch better than their debut album. Delightful songs like Wake Her Up and Desdemona hold the album together. Truly honest and open explorations of those moments in life that feel like they’re not held together by anything but a will to go on.
American Football is built on self-discovery. That feeling of never being too old to learn about yourself and what you prioritise. It comes together brilliantly across this album, a wonderful understanding of what it is that keeps people together and apart. No Soul to Save is a drifting, light sone with some touching instrumentals. Those are the moments that matter to Kinsella and the band. Percussion brilliance like the parts featured here are a real joy to hear. Much of the album has lyrical qualities that linger on the devastation and regrets of change, but they forget the inevitability of that emotional period. It’s better to level out and lean into those changes than it is to avoid and ignore them. That’s what Kinsella begins to contemplate in the latter stages of this fourth American Football album, and it’s a welcome undertaking of tough material.
