Dorks And Losers

Call­ing The World is the long-awaited follow-up to Rooney’s self-titled debut in 2003. In what seemed like for­ever to lis­ten­ers world­wide was even longer for the band as they sloughed through years of cre­ative strug­gles and label dis­agree­ments, start­ing with an aban­doned “Lost Album” and cul­mi­nat­ing in a more mature, yet still Rooney-like sound.

Leader singer Robert Schwartzman’s goal of the album was to “make peo­ple dance.” He suc­ceeds to vary­ing degrees. Songs like the clas­sic rock era “Don’t Come Around Again” and the Beach Boy-esque “I Should Have Been After You” cer­tainly are upbeat with very catchy cho­ruses, but nei­ther war­rant more than approv­ing head-bops.

Robert is tri­umphant, through, with the infec­tious “When Did Your Heart Go Miss­ing?” and disco-sounding “Are You Afraid?” as causes for cel­e­bra­tion and street-side boogy­ing. “What For” is Call­ing’s sec­ond most resem­bling of a bal­lad, with some very true words of wis­dom about rela­tion­ships: “You can work this out if you both try / It’s hard to cheat but harder to lie.”

It takes until the album’s sec­ond half before we are again treated to true Rooney music. “Love Me Or Leave Me” includes clas­sic non-stop repeat­ing lyrics, while “Par­a­lyzed” gives the band a rebel­lious tinge despite the song being about the harm­ful effects (but in a good way) of a woman.

In what might be the coolest non-apology song (“Believe In Me”) also has one of the coolest key­board melodies (by key­boardist Louie Stevens). I’m con­flicted between the pas­sion­ate vocals of Schwartz­man and the not-so pas­sion­ate lyrics of Schwartz­man (“I know I’ve been act­ing strange / But wait don’t leave I know I’ll change”). There seems to be too much of a dis­con­nect between the two.

The album’s true bal­lad is also the album’s con­clud­ing song (“Help Me Find My Way”). The song serves a dual pur­pose. One as a sort-of sum­ma­rized view of the band’s strug­gle to cre­ate Call­ing The World, and, more impor­tantly, the other as a lov­ing trib­ute to Robert’s late father (“You can’t expect me to fly / I’ve been try­ing my best to fin­ish / Where you left off”).

It’s very nice to have another Rooney album to lis­ten to, but I think the band really did strug­gle to express itself dif­fer­ently (the album’s first half) and to sim­ply retread on its already pop­u­lar sound (the album’s sec­ond half). Maybe the third effort will be what the band’s look­ing for.

[photo via Pitch]
____

Track list:

1. Call­ing The World
2. When Did Your Heart Go Miss­ing?
3. I Should’ve Been After You
4. Tell Me Soon
5. Don’t Come Around Again
6. Are You Afraid?
7. Love Me Or Leave Me
8. Par­a­lyzed
9. What For
10. All In Your Head
11. Believe In Me
12. Help Me Find My Way

Pop­u­lar­ity: 4% [?]