The Perfect Cast LP by Modern Baseball is one labeled with irony and somewhat of a glimpse of a possible future for fans. If you aren’t particularly caught up with midwest emo as a genre, Modern Baseball is arguably one of the hallmarks of the sound. They announced a hiatus in February of 2017. Plenty of the individual members went on to other projects, but the primary singer-songwriter of the band, Bren Lukens, had essentially walked away from music entirely. This album is a rerelease of one that they made back in 2015 with Lame-o Records, which is supposed to be a definitive remaster of the 6 songs from the original EP as well as 7 live recordings. One can note that Modern Baseball is not a 30 year old band, despite what the title “30th Anniversary Ultimate Edition” might suggest, they just haven’t taken themselves seriously for years. I can sit here and try to answer the age-old question of “Are they coming back?” but I won’t. Instead I’ll tell you what I think of this album sonically.
Bren’s lyricism is easily recognizable. He’s blunt and a storyteller first; a tell tale sign of his writing is dialogue between him and a girl or something. The hook of the album, “The Waterboy Returns” wastes no time to include his cliche. It’s a candid look into mental health and somewhat of a call back to “Fine, Great” from You’re Gonna Miss It All, performing the inverse of becoming the friend that gives the phone call mentioned here: “I hate when you call me late at night/ Just to check in to make sure I’ve got nothing to be sad about” It’s pretty obvious when I write it out now. As always, drums and twinkly guitar sounds are highlighting our story.
“Alpha Kappa Fall of Troy the Movie Part Deux” is a mouthful. A lot of earlier MOBO work is about lying to yourself and acting okay, while this album is somewhat of a retaliation and realization of how unhelpful that lifestyle is. The lyrics suggest that pretending to be okay is easier in the short term but ultimately leads to a less genuine life. Bren highlights the importance of having close friends and family who keep you grounded and push you to be more honest with yourself.
God I love “Infinity Exposed.” Bren’s singing voice returns to a state of that “true” sort of midwest emo sound of patheticism and yearning. This song is about a girl (it’s midwest emo, what do we expect?) and not being able to forget her, and regretting that not turning into more. Bren finds a sense of comfort with this person and wants them to be there for everything.
“The Thrash Particle” is my personal favorite off the album. It’s more romantic; Bren seems to always be in an unrequited love situation. It was a period of jealousy that tested him, he hurt people around him and felt confused, and that’s obvious in the song. Anybody who’s ever done wrong or loved someone can sit back to a wall and take in the true beauty of this song.
Goodbyes are hard for everyone involved. The initiator as well as the one sitting there, usually blindsided. “…And Beyond” is all about those goodbyes and the struggle to let go of people you care about, even when it’s necessary. I can really resonate with this as someone who left people who I had known since kindergarten for college. “You and I have come such a long way, for us to start again” is such a perfectly clean cut way of describing the way I’m sure many people have felt along with me.
To talk about the final song on the album, “Revenge of the Nameless Ranger”, you need to know there’s an EP by MOBO called The Nameless Ranger. Bren is saying throughout that they keep looking back on their life and how things have gone, wanting to change how things have happened but knowing they can’t.
Overall, this album feels so much like the adult them, even though it wasn’t the last thing they wrote (final album being Holy Ghost in 2016, a year after) It feels like a synopsis of where the band hopes to be, which makes a comeback seem impossible, but I hold hope.
First-year Ramona Banos is a Staff Writer. Her email is vbanos@fandm.edu.