The Fragile Army

by The Polyphonic Spree

Apple Music has apparently never given this band's artist profile an editorial pass, so when you navigate to their page it's up to you to figure out what this band's whole deal is across 25 years and (checks notes) 9 listed albums, only 6 of which are actually the canonical original album discography, and that's more manageable, if you know that, right?

But the best clue that Apple Music offers to its editorial subcontractors is also its most obvious, the "Essential Albums" section that blows up the selected album covers tolike 3 times their normal size.

"Essential Albums" for Polyphonic Spree, were Apple Music to wake the fuck up (lol jk) and pay for someone spending the five goddamn minutes it would take toupdate (haha only kidding) would obviously result in listing Together We're Heavy as its banner item. Sure, we get it. That's the breakout, the Hissing Fauna of this group. But in this Essential Albums thought exercise we have the opportunity to put a followup after that in the carousel. What would you put next?

You could go for the newest album, see what they're up to, what you're likely to hear at a live show mixed in with the big hits from this canonical record that you now know. You could go backward, and look for what the old heads and experts say is the moment before the big break that made everyone know this was going to be one of those bands.

Another option would be to see how they responded to their success. The Fragile Army is what came next, a highly anticipated album at the time among the Pitchfork set, and I think if you asked most people today who remember it the average opinion would be that it didn't fulfill the promise of Together We’re Heavy.

You can't deny that "Running Away" is a killer opening. It's got a double-gearshift at the ~80% mark. Into "Get Up and Go", a sort of New Wave thing that has some merit. There's some hints of the chaos of loosey-goosey indie neophyte ensembles like Los Campesinos!, Architecture in Helsinki, or–dare I say it–I'm From Barcelona in the production but still with a respectable Gen X pursuit of a classic, big-time orchestral rock sound. The title track might sound a little corny at first but the turn at the halfway point makes it an essential track.

At that point, though, the album maybe does run out of steam. I kept thinking it would come back. "Watch Us Explode" is a Big Polyphonic Spree Energy track title, but it doesn't come together. "The Championship", at the very end, comes close to finding "it", but I think just evades the grasp. DeLaughter finds his spots in his lyrics, as usual. In the right mood, at the right age, hearing the delivery of lines like “I want this world to know that I’m alive” can really be something. But it’s just a little too vague, a little too broad, in a way that was fair tobe suspicious about in the USA during the post-9/11 GW Bush administration. Is The Fragile Army a failure... I dunno! I don't think so, but also I don't think it's a hit album. I think it's a record that has a killer single on it, and also offers something more to the fans. I do think that's a pretty good thing to pull off when you've already knocked one out of the park?