What Made Milwaukee Famous - What Doesn't Kill Us

The new album from What Made Milwaukee Famous is called What Doesn’t Kill Us, but it probably shouldn’t be. According to Friedrich Nietzsche and Kanye West, the common way to complete the album title’s epigram is “makes us stronger.” The implication doesn’t really work, because whatever didn’t kill this band also neglected to make its sophomore album stronger.

WMMF hails from Austin, not Milwaukee; the moniker is likely from the Jerry Lee Lewis song of the same name. The band released its debut, Trying to Never Catch Up, on Barsuk in 2006 after self-releasing a previous version in 2004. It was a promising first album, enough to earn the band a coveted slot on Austin City Limits before it was even signed. Now, the five-piece is surely hoping to build on the positive momentum with its newest release and a tour with Louis XIV that will stop at the Basement for a sold-out show on March 21 (one of CD101’s Low Dough shows).

Sparklehorse’s Chris Michaels produced What Doesn’t Kill Us, and he seems to favor a shiny, polished sound. So much so that there’s an undeniable flavor of the current radio-friendly incarnation of emo/pop punk beneath the album’s surface, mostly stemming from the processed guitars that punctuate songs like “Cheap Wine” with enough neat and tidy power chords to fill a Simple Plan single.

What Made Milwaukee Famous also elicits a lot of comparisons to Spoon, but there are far fewer eccentricities here than in fellow Austinite Brit Daniel’s band. “Sultan” is probably the closest Spoon clone on the album, but it comes off as a poor-man’s version, like bargain-brand Toasty O’s that look the same as Cheerios but are never quite as tasty.

“For the Birds” is one of the album’s best tracks--breezy power-pop that conjures some of Butch Walker’s more successful solo material. “The Right Place” would be a good, tight two-minute pop song if it weren’t for the fairly inane lyrics. The song opens with front man Michael Kingcaid singing, “Plead with me and beg me not to stay so you can still get stoned every day.” “To Each His Own” centers around a watered-down “American Idiot”-style guitar riff, and “Prevailing Wind” shows the band at its most uninteresting, channeling ultra-average Clear Channel rock. And so on and so on.

Perhaps I’m overstating the case here. WMMF does have a good pop intellect and a penchant for choruses that are easy to sing along to. But the sum of its parts makes for a decidedly middling effort that’s doubtful to be remembered alongside other 2008 releases. Or even March 2008 releases.

mp3: What Made Milwaukee Famous - Sultan