When you hit 30, you can suck it up and adopt a blind optimism about it all. You can think “30 is the new 20” (it’s not) or “Look at all I’ve accomplished! Bring it on!” (congrats on that). Or you can give it all the finger and shotgun a beer with a bong rip chaser, realizing that it’s just another day. The latter feeling dominates fuzz punk champion Colleen Green’s newest album, I Want to Grow Up. It’s a collection of songs about Green (also newly 30) confronting the reality of her life and tossing out a fairly apathetic view of her faults from her steady self-reflection.
On “Things That Are Bad for Me (Part I)”, Green opens with “Gotta stop doing things that are bad for me/ Cause I don’t wanna live with disease/ Wanna rid myself of toxicity/ Too much of the same routine and I give in to insecurity” in a voice that combines poppy doo-wop with stoner numbness. While she’s aware of her own bad habits, there’s a damn good chance nothing is going to change any time soon, and she’s not mad about it.
Green is joined by fellow stoner fuzz punks Jake Orrall of JEFF the Brotherhood and Casey Weissbuch of Diarrhea Planet. The guests give Green a more rounded, dynamic sound from her previous home-recorded albums. I Want to Grow Up engages a great back-and-forth that most of us in our early 30s grapple with: wallowing in a life not lived and a riotous acceptance of a childlike adulthood. The album may have a few unnatural dynamic shifts — such as between the pounding “Pay Attention” and the slow dirge “Deeper Than Love” — but seeing Green writing through the mental turmoil makes it feel real and unfettered. It’s an exploration of a day in the life of a 30-year-old with an infectious punk rock soundtrack.
Essential Tracks: “Things That Are Bad for Me (Part I)”
