Project 86 and I have had a bit of a strange history for pretty much their entire career.  It’s kind of like losing touch with your childhood neighbor, and then finding out later in college that somehow you both like all the same things.  You were friends at first due to geography and necessity, and later because you connected over things in common.

When their first self-titled record came out on Tooth and Nail in 1998, I had just begun to seriously play guitar and was excited to find that I could play an entire CD’s worth of songs.  They were not super concerned with sheer technical ability and neither was I.  Their Tool meets Rage sound was something that was fairly unique to my naïve ears, especially since it was mostly before the airwaves were completely dominated by 1,000 Linkin Bizkit bands. Their sophomore record Drawing Black Lines (2000) found them bringing both heavier and more melodic elements into their sound.  After a few years of pretty serious touring they were scooped up by Atlantic Records and released the creatively and commercially disappointing Truthless Heroes (2002), and I lost all interest in the band completely.  After being dropped by Atlantic they entered the studio full of piss and vigor and self-recorded and self-released Songs To Burn Your Bridges By (2004), which contained razor sharp diatribe after diatribe aimed precisely at the industry people who had given up on them.  Tooth and Nail picked them back up and re-released Songs To Burn Your Bridges By with a few new songs, and seemed to breathe a bit of life back into the band, followed by 2005’s excellent …And the Rest Will Follow (2005).

Which brings us to the current release, Rival Factions.  If …And The Rest Will Follow was me seeing my childhood friend in the halls and being happy to see they weren’t some strung out homeless hippie on a street corner, Rival Factions is us completely re-connecting over our love for 80s music and stoner rock.  Rival Factions finds the band choosing to take a fairly sharp stylistic left turn in the place of the recreation of a very successful record,  and for the first time in their 10 year, 6 album career, they sound like they are actually having fun doing it.  While Project 86 has certainly never been short on emotion, none of their recordings have ever demonstrated any amount of real, legit personality, which anyone who has seen them live or seen their video podcasts knows they have.  To that end, Rival Factions is overflowing with personality.  It sounds as if they have figured out how to absorb and re-interpret their influences rather than solely mimic them well, as on previous releases.  The addition of drumming genius Jason Gerkin (ex-Shiner) must have been immensely freeing to the songwriting process, as the band was no longer restricted by the limited, though competent, talent of their previous drummer.

The songs sound somewhere between Refused, a much heavier Killers, and Queens of the Stone Age at their most rockin’, fronted by an phenomenal screamer having finally embraced his inner Joy Division.  Lead vocalist Andrew Schwab has been trying to add melody to his formerly half spoken word/half screamed delivery back since Truthless Heroes, and for the first time it works.  Check out the best track on the record, “The Forces Of Radio Have Dropped A Viper Into The Rhythm Section” for one of Schwab’s finest vocal performance in the band’s catalogue, not to mention a great demonstration of why Jason Gerkin is one of the best drummers around today.  In contrast to “The Forces of Radio…” the vocal delivery on the verses of the closing track “Normandy” are horrendous.

Aside from this rather painful vocal misstep into She Wants Revenge territory, he sounds as if he has found his groove on the rest of the record.  Guitars and bass sound perfectly at home in a warm, fuzz covered tone courtesy of veteran producer Ulrich Wild.  The band has thankfully managed to sidestep the overly digital feel most heavy-ish bands rely on these days.  In another interesting change, a lot of the instrumental melodies have been delegated to some decidedly analog-sounding keyboards, played by the always consistent Jason Martin (Starflyer 59).  The keyboards give the songs a very distinct textural feel, as well as some sweet 80’s New Wave throwbacks.  Lyrically Rival Factions is a bit of a let down, especially for as able a writer as Schwab is.  In a decidedly calculated move the majority of the lyrics are far more ambiguous and repetitive than usual, falling prey to Rival Factions’ straightforward pop structure.  Schwab shifts to a storytelling point of view in a few of them, which lends itself to some interesting perspectives, from a series of fans giving their opinions to a band member (Caveman Jam) to a neglectful church leader (Sanctuary Hum).  Overall a great payoff on a potentially fatal gamble.  Rival Factions shows it’s not necessarily a bad thing for a band to always feel like they have something to prove.