Album Review: Love Is the Law by The Memories

The Memories are two members of the punk band White Fang: Erik Gage and Kyle Handley, who make punchy songs about love and smoking weed. Their songs have a simplicity to them that makes it easy to imagine dozens of tracks being churned out in tape after tape. But what does it mean to be a band whose goals seem so relaxed and simple? What rubric do you use to evaluate a band who once boasted, “When she’s takin’ off my pants, I know what to do”? You have to meet the Memories on their own turf.

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It’s four in the morning. Six or so people left. Somebody’s got an out-of-tune Epiphone, DR-100, somebody else a spare snare drum. Ivory billows rise out of bongs, tumble from mouths. Copious jamming, impromptu sing-alongs. “We should start a band,” someone says. Everyone echoes this. At ….

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The greatest flaw of every music critic is that we will go into every album we hear hoping (if not expecting) that it will be the greatest piece of music ever made. I’m sure there are plenty of artists out there who have been slagged and put down by people like me simply because they committed the egregious sin of not making Revolver or Pet Sounds or something like that. Should modest expectations really be punished? I’m tempted to say no… but then there’s the example of the Memories, whose new album Love Is The Law is the perfect example of what happens when an artist aims low and doesn’t have the good sense to hit the target.

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In the infinite barf bag of Clichés About Life remain a few factoids regarding music and its effect on the human brain. “Music is tied to memory” is one of them. Whether it’s that ’90s hit that reminds you of a cinematic road trip, or a bedroom-recorded track unearthed from the dusty recesses of your iTunes that recalls fetal-position heartbreak, some chord progressions and vocal sighs are unavoidably nostalgic.

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