Album Review: Fate & Alcohol by Japandroids

The Canadian duo come to a full stop with their fourth and final album Every journey eventually comes to an end. And so it is that Fate & Alcohol marks the end of Japandroids‘ journey, with the Canadian duo deciding to call it quits after 18 years together. It’s an amicable break-up too, so much so that David Prowse and Brian King aren’t even referring to the split as a break up – they’re simply done.

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Canadian two-piece Japandroids have been going hard at their own party for the past 18 years. Their euphoric, cathartic live shows have brought frantic crowds to the brink of joyous oblivion night after night, year after year. Their albums, bittersweet sonic walls of death where Hüsker Dü butt heads with Springsteen, have served as a rare treasure--this being only their fourth studio record across the better part of two decades.

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Now I'm drinkin' and now I'm thinkin' 'bout youuuuuuuuu Maybe Japandroids weren't meant to last. The Canadian duo rode a wave to indie prominence - right place, right time - at a moment when rock groups celebrating youthful exuberance and bemoaning its impending loss in equal measure were all the rage. Their first records - 2009's Post-Nothing and 2011's Celebration Rock - captured the heart of the indie crowd through untrammeled energy and an exhilarating attitude defined primarily by the lack of ***s given.

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But no more! Fate & Alcohol is billed as the Vancouver duo's final record, an album these notorious road dogs aren't even going to tour behind. And while that's certainly a shame for fans of Brian King and David Prowse's stadium-sized indie anthems, it also shouldn't be a surprise. Now in their 40s, with King newly sober and a father-to-be, the lives of Japandroids' members couldn't be further from the image they created for themselves across three albums and numerous singles.

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Fate & Alcohol is the definitive final statement we never thought we'd get from Japandroids - a good band with one perfect album, and an underappreciated misfire of a third record the duo thought would be their OK Computer or their White Pony that seemed destined to be their farewell. As it happens, Brian King and David Prowse had one final yell like hell to the heavens to deliver. It's a back-to-basics tale of tiring of constant hangovers, sobering up and getting out - an ode to the younger us.

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The knowledge that all things end doesn't make it any easier when they inevitably do. And there will be many fans of Japandroids who were left bereft at the news that accompanied the announcement of their new album. 'Fate & Alcohol' is to be the fourth and final record from the Canadian duo, and brings the curtain down on a career lasting over fifteen years; no mean feat for an alternative rock band that had its fair share of success without ever quite crossing over in the way they deserved.

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The announcement of this fourth Japandroids LP came as mixed news to the faithful; it will be their last. Years of radio silence had led many to conclude that the Canadian duo had quietly called it a day already; instead, they're back with a parting shot, seven years after the ambitious 'Near to the Wild Heart of Life' split opinion. This time around, the title suggests a return to the boozy, fists-to-the-sky garage rock that they made their name with on 'Post-Nothing' and 'Celebration Rock', on which the anthemic likes of 'The Nights of Wine and Roses' and 'The House That Heaven Built' played as paeans to hedonism and revelry.

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