this song title is a bit of a mouthful, and it’s also the roaring opener to drive like jehu’s second and final album, Yank Crime. i wanted to continue diving into the post-hardcore genre and came across drive like jehu. i started the angular epic “Do You Compute“, then this, and then the rest of the album (it’s a great album, by the way!). and i’m yet to hear an opening track better than “Here Come the Rome Plows”.
“Here Come the Rome Plows” is all at once suffocating, aggressive, and unrelenting. rick froberg’s (r.i.p.) screaming vocals and reis’ sprinting guitars seem to be competing for dominance without being excessive- it’s on the verge of it but it’s held back from going overboard by a more modest rhythm section. not to mention the 5/4 time signature makes this even more dizzying. i hardly noticed it until i began counting the beat, and in my opinion, that’s how odd time signatures should be done: less as a gimmick and more as a necessary feature.
what astounds me about this song the most has to be the fact that it mostly has just three repeating sections: the verse (“Cal state/no fun”), then the yelling chorus (“Rome plows!”), then the part where froberg actually sings something (“I’ve never been on/the receiving end”). there’s also a bit of soloing here and there. each and every part drives forward like a roaring bulldozer. you’d expect it to lose its momentum at some point- but that’s the thing, it doesn’t. you can blast it at full volume for the entire six minutes without once losing hold of the song’s thrill and intensity, because each part of this song just lands perfectly. give it a listen if you haven’t already! 🙂
q-street 