God Save The Smithereens – Christopher Thelen

God Save The Smithereens is an album that almost never
happened. The band had been dropped by RCA after one disappointing
album,
A Date With The Smithereens. The band seemed to be in a
major holding pattern. Bassist Mike Mesaros had even left the band
at one point. Personal lives got in the way; lead singer/guitarist
Pat DiNizio went through a divorce, the results of which would be
heard in the songs on this album. And then, when this album was set
to be released, their record label hit the skids. (Apparently, Koch
bought up a lot of what used to be Velvel.)

In one sense, I rally didn’t want to see the saga of the
Smithereens end on the note of
A Date With The Smithereens, an album that I knew could have
been much better. So, it could be said that DiNizio and crew had
little to lose and a lot to gain by bringing out a new album. And
while
God Save The Smithereens indicates a step in the right
direction again for the group, it’s not a perfect album.

The first thing that strikes me about the feel of
God Save The Smithereens is it feels like I’m listening to
one of their earlier works like
Especially For You. There isn’t the kind of polish that you
would have heard on their masterpiece
11 — and I think that was done on purpose, as if the band
wanted to build back up to that level with hard work.

But unlike their earlier albums which were happy-go-lucky in
their own quirky ways,
God Save The Smithereens is often a brooding album that
dares to suggest that our heroes, indeed, are growing up along with
their audience. Behind the soaring vocal harmonies that have always
been this band’s trademark, there are signs of heartbreak and
pain.

I don’t know DiNizio on a personal level — the one time I met
him, he shook my hand and said, “I know you from somewhere” — but
I think it’s safe to say that he used this album to work through
the pain of his divorce and the harsh reality of starting over
again in life. Songs like “Even If I Never Get Back Home” and “Try”
hit the listener like open wounds that still smart. It’s not
something that one might expect from the group – but then again,
who would have expected a song like “Gotti” one album before?

The band is still desparately jonesing for another hit single on
the lines of “A Girl Like You”, and on
God Save The Smithereens, they have a few offerings that
come close to that mark. The album’s opening track, “She’s Got A
Way,” has the magic that the band has been looking for. The rhythm
section of guitarist Jim Babjak, Mesaros and drummer Dennis Diken
work a groove that is enough to wake the dead, while DiNizio lays
down a powerful vocal. Likewise, “House At The End Of The Road,” a
duet with Carrie Akre from Goodness, brings back memories of the
band’s work with Belinda Carlisle on “Blue Period” and is a real
charmer.

But in the end,
God Save The Smithereens sinks under its own melancholia.
Tracks like “Everything Changes,” “The Long Loneliness” and “Gloomy
Sunday” are okay tracks, but after a while, it almost becomes akin
to listening to a soap opera. I’m not saying that the Smithereens
should always be a happy-go-lucky band, but balancing the dark of
life with the light a little more often wouldn’t have hurt
things.

All of this said, it’s still a better album than
A Date With The Smithereens — at least from my
recollections of the album, anyway — and represents a band that is
willing to get back down to work and crank out tracks on their own
terms. They’re not quite back in the spotlight as they once were,
but at least they have put out an album that brings them closer to
it.