Allister – Countdown To Nowhere

Here we are some three-plus years after Allister originally called it quits, but right on the heels of the band’s recent performance at Bamboozle Chicago and I’m writing about their new (yes, new) album, Countdown To Nowhere. It’s the band’s fourth full-length album and first since 2005’s Before The Blackout. Countdown To Nowhere isn’t scheduled for release until July 16th, and even then that’s only in Japan. As of right now there are still no concrete details as to when or how it will be released here in the States. Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later because this is a pretty damn good record and shows that these guys haven’t really missed a step at all. Heck, the band’s lineup is exactly what it was 3 years ago; Tim Rogner on guitar/vocals, Scott Murphy on bass/vocals, Kyle Murphy on guitar, and Mike Leverence on drums.

So when Allister went on hiatus back in 2007 because Tim learned he was going to be a father, it was absolutely the right thing to do. I’ll get up on my soapbox here, but I’m a father and I applaud him for doing that; for letting the world know that his family was more important than the band. Still, it’s not as if these guys were sitting around doing nothing for 3 years. Tim and Mike (along with Tim’s brother Chris) formed The Collapsed, Scott and Kyle formed The Get Go, and Scott also found a ton of success as a solo artist in Japan. But now, here in 2010, these guys are back together with this album ready to be released on Universal Japan. It’s funny how things sometimes work out, right? I know exactly.

For me, listening to Allister has always been a little bittersweet, and listening to Countdown To Nowhere is no exception. Maybe you want to know all the details, but the short version is that once upon a time (a long time ago) three friends started a pop-punk band and really never expected this. Members came and went, but the band lived on; anchored by Tim and Scott and their talents as songwriters… plus a little bit of good luck. Heck, I still remember Scott hanging around Solid Sound when we recorded the You Can’t Do That On Vinyl 7.” Not long after that there were four of us. We’ve all grown older and our lives have gotten increasingly complex with kids, jobs, and houses, but somehow Allister remains. I never thought the band would still be releasing new material almost 14 years after it all started. Believe it or not, before settling on Allister, some of the names we knocked around were Phineas Gage, Turk Wendell, and (yes, this is true) Fall Out Boy.

As one of the founding members of Allister, I know that I’m definitely not the most appropriate person to be writing this review, but as a big pop punk fan and someone who has been a music critic (I know, that sounds pretentious) for the last five years, I think I can handle it. Besides, the last batch of songs I was involved in writing appeared on 2002’s Last Stop Suburbia, so it’s been a long time.

Well, Countdown To Nowhere opens with “Failure,” a song that was originally written by Tim and recorded for The Conways (a band Tim and Mike were in way before Mike joined Allister). That was roughly 10 years ago, and the song is as good now as it was back then. It’s a vintage Tim Rogner pop punk song that I always secretly wished was an Allister tune. Lyrically, “Failure” and the rest of the album is dominated by the same themes Allister albums have always focused on; falling in love, losing love, growing up, and the despair of everyday life, all intertwined with a thread of redemption running through it all. The album’s second track, “Runaway,” begins with a keyboard melody that quickly builds into a more of a mid-tempo song sung by Scott. There’s something a bit cinematic and nostalgic about this song and it wouldn’t sound out of place on his solo album Balance or any other of his Japanese releases. Wanna hear the song and watch the video?

From there, the band goes into “Dance With Me,” a fun little song complete with some Weasel-esqe organ in the chorus. It’s uncomplicated and essentially fluff, but I’ll be damned if it ain’t a ton of fun and catchy-as-fuck. I can already picture crowds dancing and singing along with the chorus of, “Let’s dance the night away!” Remember kids, pop punk ain’t brain surgery or rocket science. It’s followed by “All We Needed,” a sung by Scott that is a bit more aggressive than “Runaway” but like a lot of Scott’s songs (especially considering his solo output) it’s still squarely more in the power-pop-rock vein and less of the typical pop punk styling that Allister is best known for.

“Breathe For You” is fairly atypical for a Tim song, but the chorus is absolutely huge. It really (just as a number of other songs on the album do) reminds me of some of the newer and “less punk but more rock” Green Day songs (think American Idiot and later). It shows a sort of measured maturity that really suits the band. Don’t get me wrong, Allister is still a pop punk band, but some of the slower songs here (such as this one) are tremendous and show a different side of the band. Now if Bad Religion or Alkaline Trio was fronted by Scott Murphy, they might write songs that sound something like “Make It Work.” It’s melodic but has a little darker edge than anything else on Countdown To Nowhere.

“Can’t Let Go” was initially my favorite song on the album. It’s an incredibly catchy and pretty straightforward song about knowing it’s time to hang it up but fighting it with everything you’ve got. The song also finds Tim pushing his voice a little harder than I’ve ever heard him do before. And like a number of other songs on the album, “Can’t Let Go” swells into a huge sing-a-long chorus. The next song, “Yearbook,” is this album’s “Camouflage.” Scott’s upbeat songs are what I’m going to affectionately now call Ponyo-core (for those who are unfamiliar, Ponyo is a great animated Japanese children’s film). It’s the sort of fast and catchy J-pop style punk that Scott does so well. Yes, this is the same Scott that gave us “Making Iris Happy” on The Humdinger’s See Ya Later Aviator back in 1998. Still catchy but more refined.

“Free” is another song from the days when Tim and Mike were in The Conways together back at Eastern Illinois University. I’ve got a copy of the cassette it was released on in a box somewhere in my garage. I’ll have to find it because it’s one of my favorites from those days. “Free” is also typical of most of the songs on this album in that there are some great vocal harmonies courtesy of Tim and Scott. If you haven’t yet seen it (or heard it), there is a video for “Free” that’s also been released. The opening keyboards of “Start Something” are a dead giveaway that this is a Scott song full of the melodic Ponyo-core you’ve come to expect on his songs. It is.

From the first notes, “Diamond Ring” is a fast and kinda snotty love song that reminds me a ton of “Residential Burglary” off the first Allister album Dead Ends And Girlfriends except that this song’s not about anyone named Pishko. It also reminds me of an old-school Teen Idols type song. “Tokyo Sunrise” is (surprisingly) not a song that’s sung by Scott, which breaks the every other song trade in lead vocals that the album has had thus far. This is (far and away) the biggest ballad that Allister has ever released. It’s a huge departure from just about everything they’ve done, and I’m guessing you might not like it at first. It’s more Mr. Big than Green Day, but oddly enough it doesn’t really sound that out of place. It sounds, well, like a lot of the non-punk influences that Tim’s never really shown Allister fans like Marvelous 3, Gentle Giant, Synod, etc… even if some of his vocal affectations (at least to me) seem a little over-stylized and caricatured.

Countdown To Nowhere officially ends with Allister’s rousing cover of The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.” It’s a fun and punky take on the song. Tim pushes his voice so hard my wife actually asked if it was still Allister. It’s a good end to the album that reminds you what listening to an Allister album should be about.

As a little bit of an aside, Allister also released a split EP with the Japanese band Good4Nothing. The Allister side of the EP features “Free,” a great and ultra-catchy song from Scott called “Swimming Upstream” and a cover of the Good4Nothing song “It’s My Paradise” which is really good despite having a ridiculous keyboard solo in the middle. It also features Scott and Tim trading off lead vocals in the same song. The Good4Nothing side features two originals and their cover of “Somewhere On Fullerton.”

I know that you’re asking yourself, “What does this all add up to?” Well, I’ve been listening to Countdown To Nowhere almost non-stop now for over a week and, I’ve come to the conclusion that although this is Allister, it’s a different Allister. As clichéd as it sounds, this is a more mature band and the songs reflect that it is. This is the least punk and slowest-paced album these guys have released. It’s the most polished Allister album to date as well. Perhaps I’m just comparing this to stuff I’ve been listening to lately (i.e. Dear Landlord, Off With Their Heads, TLA, etc…) but the production is pretty slick too.

I love it. I have no doubt this will be a huge success in Japan and (hopefully) here in the US. Personally, there’s no denying that Countdown To Nowhere will be part of my soundtrack to this summer and that it is, without question, the best post-Skippy album Allister has released. All kidding aside, Countdown To Nowhere is the best and most accomplished album these guys have released.