Japandroids sign off with the pretty good Fate & Alcohol

It’s a minor tragedy that “Chicago,” the lead single from Japandroid’s fourth and final album, Fate & Alcohol,¹ won’t be played live.

It’s an occasionally emotionally wrought, mostly mid-tempo stomper that sounds purpose-built to completely dismantle theaters and larger clubs across North America. It’s as propulsive and invigorating as the best songs in the vaunted Canadian indie-rock duo’s discography. It deserves to inspire yawps of recognition from the black tee- and flannel-clad masses. Instead, it stands as a highwater mark on what singer-guitarist Brian King and singer-drummer Brian Prowse emphatically say will be the band’s last LP — and one that does not portend a tour.² 

Although my affection for “Chicago” — and honestly, Japandroids — is hopelessly tangled up in personal experiences sweating through my shirt at a Japandroids concert in the song’s namesake city (on two separate occasions), it objectively sounds of a piece with Japandroid’s rafter-rattling best,³ and defies expectations of what a band on its self-imposed last legs sounds like. It’s also an interesting case study of how thin the line is between good Japandroids and less good Japandroids. Unfortunately, the latter shows up early and in force on Fate & Alcohol, and the difference can be hard to place.  

The first two tracks on the album, “Eye Contact High” and “D&T,” might be my least favorite on the album and inspired worry that one of my favorite bands would be calling it quits on the heels of a faceplant. Both tracks are too energetic and sound too much like vintage Japandroids⁴ to be outright bad. However, both songs are relative clunkers on an album that hits more than it misses. King’s reedy vocals — a delight when shouted off mic and accompanied by Prowse, twisted into an anguished howl or imbued with reckless menace — are front-and-center and exceedingly chipper on both tracks. In addition to being a sign-off, Fate & Alcohol is also both a getting-sober album and an impending-fatherhood album. I fully reject the idea that either of those objectively positive, seismically life-altering developments somehow rob artists of creativity or intrigue. But times are heady, intensely personal and exceptionally emotive for King, and I do think that comes through in songs that are just a smidge too verbose and tiptoe over the line from heartfelt to cloying. 

So is the phrase,  “Sorry, baby, we call it like we see it in Chicago,” somewhat off-putting, tough-guy posturing and at least a little unfortunate? I think so. Does the song feel like it’s aping other tracks in the relatively thin Japandroids discography?⁵ At least a little bit, yep. Does “Chicago” still completely rip in a way that plasters a smile on my stupid Millennial face? Oh, indeed. Plus, that phrase is counterbalanced by the lyrics “Goddamn, ma’am, I’m sweating through my shirt. Any more and my body’s going to burn up in front of everyone.” It’s a successful blending of corporeal observation and poetic license that also accurately describes the strenuous fervor Japandroids bring to performing music.⁶ The difference is subtle but it’s there.  

The album’s third track, “Alice,” kicks things into gear though. It’s four-and-a-half minutes of chorus-free muffled buzzsaw guitar and blues cadence that builds mudslide inertia as more and more of Prowse’s drum kit enters the fray. While “Alice” lacks a big-swing chorus found on other tracks to truly open the dopamine floodgates, it might be the best song on Fate & Alcohol. It’s just a joy to listen to, and it successfully builds momentum that carries through most of the rest of the album. 

If “Alice” isn’t the best song on the album, that’s probably “Chicago,” which follows it. Those two songs form the bedrock of my mostly favorable opinion of Fate and Alcohol. While the tunes that follow are generally less remarkable, for the most part they’re nearly as enjoyable and somewhat function like a tour of the band’s history. 

“Upon Sober Reflection” is a fun song built on fast-slow-fast-slow shifts that are marked by a pregnant pause and a sharp rap on Prowse’s drums. It’s not the most complex trick, but it’s a flourish that makes me pay attention every time. The slower bits bear a striking resemblance to the tail-end of “North South East West,” off the band’s last album, Near the Wild Heart of Life. It seems like a polarizing place to self-borrow from, but it works better as a recurring interlude than an almost-country coda, and it’s their last chance to make the idea work, so why not? 

“Fugitive Summer,” true to it’s title sounds buoyant and sun-kissed. That’s thanks to some of the sweetest harmonies on Fate & Alcohol, and King working in a twangier guitar tone with the usual Japandroids-approved distortion shimmer. There’s an extremely short pre-chorus moment around the two-minute mark of the track that wrings an involuntary smile from me on each relisten. Prowse pummels a short drum fill with the intensity of Animal from the Muppets and the tasteful restraint of Ringo Starr. It sets the stage perfectly for the harmonized “Babyyy”  that follows and helps cement the song as a goddamn delight. 

Prowse assumes lead-vocal duties for “A Gaslight Anthem” and acquits himself well. In a not-at-all stunning development, the song is a big-sounding blast of energy that chugs along with the intensity of a Post-Nothing-era rave-ups. That energy belies darker subject matter, according to Prowse, who also wrote the song’s lyrics, as “Gaslight Anthem” was inspired by a friend — not King — who battled with addiction. 

“Positively 34th Street,” is a momentum-killing stumble. It’s an overly long story song about troubled-but-triumphant love. A starry-eyed first-person narrator (King) is beguiled by a rough-and-tumble woman with a hard-learned skepticism for romance. Despite a tough exterior, the “walking, talking, drinking, smoking, gambling kind of girl,” decides to “roll the dice” on the narrator. I’m certain that the germ of this song is deeply personal, for King, and the song’s 5-minute run time is meant to make it feel as epic as a love for the ages, but it just doesn’t work. To the song’s credit, despite being intractable, it isn’t lethargic, and it dials back the guitar distortion, which sets up “One Without the Other” to hit that much harder. 

Fate & Alcohol’s ninth song is both unchartered territory for Japandroids and what I have to imagine is an intentional homage to their first album. In the new column: “One Without the Other” marks the first time a Japandroids studio album has had more than eight songs. In the reminiscent of Post-Nothing column: An extremely solid approximation of the tag-team wailed vocals and guitar crunch that captured the blogosphere’s attention and prolonged the band’s existence by 15 years.⁷ It’s extremely on the nose for King and Prowse to echo the sound of their breakthrough album on a song about a tandem going their separate ways on the penultimate track of their ultimate album, but it’s also effective and affecting. 

The final track on the final Japandroids album, “All Bets Are Off,” is a customary album-closing ballad.⁸ While its placement on the album recalls three predecessors, it features some electronic bloops that really have no direct analog in the band’s oeuvre — even if they have a bit of a precursor on “Arc of Bar.” It’s an interesting moment to try something new, and I admire the boldness. Eventually, the song swells with both members of the band playing and singing their hearts out, and finally almost five minutes after it started, the voices and instruments fade away, and some metallic clangs ring out as the last sounds Japandroids will put to wax. 

While I don’t think Fate & Alcohol will top many year-end lists or eventually populate “best final album” listicles, it’s a fine album and a worthy addition to the Japandroids canon. It delivers more hits than misses, and a few of them really and truly connect.  Fate & Alcohol was almost certainly not especially fun to make  — King’s perfectionism is well-documented and bands don’t typically break up after releasing their first album in seven years if everything is wine and roses — but for the most part, it sounds fun. There are thrills, flourishes, moments of invention and, most importantly, moments of closure that fully justify the album’s existence and let the band break up with dignity intact. 

1.  Released October 16, 2024 on Anti-. 
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2. Confirmed in this piece, which also contains just about anything else you could possibly want to know about Japandroids: https://www.stereogum.com/2279911/japandroids-2024/interviews/cover-story/. ↩︎
3. I can only hope the sports teams I inexplicably support adopt it as a de facto theme song, so it can get the stadium play it warrants. ↩︎
4.  Producer Jesse Gander is back after Peter Katis handled 2017’s Near the Wild Heart of Life. I liked that one more than most. Especially, its closing track, “In a Body Like a Grave.” It’s an all-time bummer anthem, an ode to slow physical and spiritual erosion and atrophy that somehow comes off as life-affirming. It’s a helluva way to close an album and start a 7-year hiatus. ↩︎
5.  Three eight-song LPs from 2009 to 2017 plus the 10-track Fate & Alcohol. It’s an enjoyable, quality oeuvre, but it is not an expansive one.  ↩︎
6.  Seriously, when these dudes were touring Celebration Rock, King would dunk his head in a tub of ice water between sets and Prowse downed what seemed like a concerning number of energy drinks. Spontaneous combustion, cardiac or otherwise, seemed like a distinct possibility. ↩︎
7.  Famously(?) Japandroids initially planned to break up after releasing their first album. https://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/japandroids-celebration-rock ↩︎
8. Body Like A Grave” from Near the Wild Heart of Life. I’d rank “All Bets Are Off” third in its lineage, ahead of “I Quit Girls,” nipping at the heels of “Body Like a Grave” and miles behind “Continuous Thunder.” ↩︎