BLEACHERS: JACK ANTONOFF AND CO WEAVE A TECHNICOLOUR DREAM ON NEW ALBUM

Jack Antonoff requires no introduction, winning awards and earning his name through his work as a producer with Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, The 1975, et al., but his own project, the very New Jersey band Bleachers, is somehow still an underdog of the music industry. A contrast to the singer/songwriter pop work he’s mostly known for producing, Bleachers is a big band, with big riffs and big sax solos and big breakdowns. Bleachers’ nostalgic take on rock/pop is the current heir to the New Jersey Sound throne, complete with a Bruce Springsteen duet on their third (excellent) record, Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night. Bleachers has always been driven by a Springsteen inspired marriage of big band bombast and devastatingly honest and intimate lyrics, ever since their debut single ten years ago, I Wanna Get Better. On their fourth record, the self-titled Bleachers, that particular brand of the New Jersey Sound is only truly present on the lead single, Modern Girl. Using Modern Girl as the lead single is a bit of a trojan horse – here’s the Bleachers we know you know, but now for the rest of this record we’re going to show you the underside that you might have missed. The darkness has been a part of every Bleachers’ record, but here on album number four the balance is firmly on that side of town, sonically. The rave ups and breakdowns are left in the past.

That’s not to say that Bleachers is stark – in fact, it’s richly colourful, painting full soundscapes in deep pastel hues that fill the soundstage with shadows and intrigue. It’s an album that benefits from good speakers or headphones, as every instrument is doing something interesting, something unique, and the production is clear, but layered. Despite being a capital-B Band, the sound of Bleachers here is processed – be it a drum machine or vocal manipulations, the efforts of Jack Antonoff the Producer is always leading the charge. So much so that halfway through the record, when the acoustic guitar intro to Woke Up Today breaks through, it’s a shock – such a familiar sound, usually one of calm, is suddenly like ice water.

If the lack of party songs is telling us anything, it’s to pay attention. Things are different. The emotional heart of this record is found, for once, in happiness. Jack visits his sadness in Alma Matter, the second single – visiting it from a distance, as an outsider. Both on the record and in the music video, this leads right into Tiny Moves, an 80’s-tinged love song, an ode, as the song title suggests, to the little things your lover does that fills you with awe and joy, a song which wouldn’t be out of place at the climax of a throwback romcom.

This new found happiness brings with it a new set of questions, and it’s this that Bleachers explores in the more experimental back half. From survivors’ guilt on We Are Going To Know Each Other Forever to the need to cut loose and be imperfect on Self Respect, Bleachers swings from finding joy, to finding joy confusing.

On the penultimate track, Ordinary Heaven, Jack seems to land on a middle ground of finding joy in the everyday, crying out “don’t lose track of our ordinary heaven” on repeat. He’s seemingly coming to terms with wanting the regular, happy life, even if not understanding it. “My guess is that we’re all built the same” he continues on an outro monologue, “…ultimately, we also know what we have…embracing what we’ve done with our lives,” echoing the spoken ending of Bleachers’ debut record, Strange Desire. But this isn’t the end of Bleachers – this time, there’s one more song. (Or five if you have the vinyl bonus tracks.) And so like most great records about life, there aren’t any answers here, only questions, left hanging in the silence. Bleachers is a dream, rich and in full screaming colour, one that is surreal and sometimes scary, but comforting, and all the more wonderfully mystifying for it.

Bleachers releases on 8th March 2024, on Dirty Hit Records.
Bleachers tour the UK in March. All dates are sold out.

MORRIS SHAMAH

PHOTO CREDIT: ALEX LOCKETT