What is the point of “punk” anyway? Is it fighting for the right to be different? Is it about trying to right the wrongs that false normalcy has fucked up? How about belonging? All you need to know is that punk isn’t really about fucking shit up for the sake of fucking shit up.
At best, punk has long adopted and championed the philosophy of the village child who burns down the whole town because he feels like he is shut out for not fitting in. Nowadays, the “village child” philosophy is approached with a bit more empathy. The child is hurt and alone, and looking for community, even in a raw state. Keep this in mind, and you will better understand why Brooklyn’s own Early Riser’s folk-punk music fits in so well with the punk music of our time as the genre retired giving no punk, reeling it as lie: punks care—very deeply. Early Riser makes music for those who try but fail and those who see other people trying and failing while assuring you that no matter how many times you do, you remain human through all. It’s punk rock for people who would accept the exile from the village over the burning of it because they aren’t the only ones exiled—what is born from the castouts is community. If allowed, those sentences could tell Big Life’s story alone.
The colorful band, featuring cellist Heidi Vanderlee, bassist Nicole Nussbaum, and drummer Mike Yannich, benefits from the youthful Kiri Oliver singing, where she often comes off as the “small girl in a big world” in their powerful scored stories. Their latest album opener “Beetlejuice” is a perfect example; if the song wasn’t largely acoustic, the track would have felt like a burst of fire to those used to ripping electric guitars and drums crashing like boulders down an avalanche. But even if the music doesn’t communicate such heaviness, the lyrics surely will. In the middle is Oliver chronicling the life of someone whose friendships may have gone south due to unforeseen issues, and despite feeling down, she carries both a catchiness and a sense of humor. “I’m sorry, were you hoping I would tell you something more uplifting?” Oliver smirks. “Can’t hold you up when I’m on the floor bleeding.” Sometimes, punk can just be a good vehicle to say that life sucks, I suppose.
Time and time again, the futility of trying to fit in is a common topic for Early Riser—and one that especially dominates Big Life. Whether they’re speaking about Kiri or people in general is up to the song’s perspective. “Strays” and the title track both hint at one thing in two different directions: a new city and the act of trying to adjust there. The former suggests with a new life comes the need to start all over, that pushing the reset button comes with the slow need to heal as she sings, “No one tells you that leaving is only the start of chipping away at the glacier surrounding your heart.” Meanwhile “Big Life” demonstrates the hardships of adjusting, pondering a life of being a big name while maintaining reclusivity, as Kiri states, “I want a big life,” to “stay at home,” for “everyone to know her name,” and “leave her alone.” Then she humorously asks “What am I supposed to do when all these things are true?” But if “The Self-Edit” hints at anything, it is being a hermit can help preserve your sense of self, something others are not as comfortable with. “Every party, they would say you never talked / When you did they only told you to shut up,” sighs Kiri. The song’s bounciness offers a salve to such an eroding reality.
Even if hermit life seems to be an open goal, it isn’t to the point where if she sees anyone who has been in that space like she has, she’ll leave them to the same bit of hurt and isolation. After all, another common theme for Early Riser is the act of befriending those likely to be dismissed as the social otherkins. “Cool” is about finding loyal friendships with social pariahs, accompanied by the anthemic chorus, “We can’t be cool, we can’t be chill / We don’t hold back, we don’t sit still / We have never said the perfect thing and probably never will,” which serves as the perfect loser clique anthem for our time. However, “Get Along” finds Kiri meeting an individual with the same sensitivities betrayed by social traumas. In the track, she concludes having similarities could foster a bond based on healing and understanding, referencing the “scared rescue dog” on “Strays,” where she points out to the subject “You’ve got a scared dog too.”
If anything can be taken from Big Life, these songs are anthems for those who want to be more open and social but are too anxious as the world remains uncaring. Big Life walks up to you and says hi then asks you to go away because you were a disrespectful weirdo. It is ambitious yet sensitive, and not the least bit scared (okay, maybe a little) about how the world will respond to those sensitivities. If carrying the same urge to stick a middle finger at the judgmental world as the urge to meet the world with the faulty yet warm smile they were born with isn’t punk, what the hell is?
