Here in 2023, Jeff Rosenstock finds himself firmly cemented as one of the central intersection points of a complex web of some of the best musicians around right now. He’s had multiple projects: Bomb the Music Industry!, Antarctigo Vespucci, and most recently a vaunted career under his own name – but no matter what, you can’t really throw a stone in any direction from Rosenstock’s projects and not find a wealth of great artists sharing bills, and very often listed in his albums’ credits. For this fall run in support of his newest album, HELLMODE, Rosenstock has brought along Gladie and Sidney Gish: the former, out of Philly, embodies excellence in personal, emotional songwriting. Each song from their new album is line upon fantastically quotable and relatable line, like “I was born yesterday / I forgot I could be somebody”. Gish is something of a local hero in Boston, developing her musical pursuits as she attended Northeastern University. She sets up her pedals and guitar with Limp Bizkit blaring over the PA, and for her own songs builds loops onstage, precisely assembling songs like ‘Sin Triangle’ whose chorus has the crowd jumping, hands aloft.
For Rosenstock, HELLMODE continues a strong streak of albums that really kicked off in the mid-2010s with the release of We Cool? and WORRY. He also made an entire ska rework of 2020’s No Dream that, despite the cheeky song titles, was anything but a dalliance, instead a loving homage to one of the many genres that anchor Jeff’s position in the greater lineage of guitar music. And much of that time has, appropriately, been spent observing trust, security, and overall sanity erode in recent years. He joins artists (and recent tourmates both) like Cheekface and AJJ in fearing for the future and is one of the most articulate voices in describing the rage and confusion – and contrasting glimpses of happiness – that adorn this era of American life. As easy as it is to find talented people surrounding Jeff Rosenstock, it’s even easier to look at the big picture of Western life and see extremism institutional failure, and countless other depressing realities.
All of the above is fuel for the band’s fury – it’s not just Rosenstock, but his entire outfit who give so much energy in live performance, a quality which has consistently made their shows absolutely unmissable events. From my first Rosenstock show at AS220 in Providence, RI circa 2016 to this HELLMODE-era headliner at a hugely-packed Roadrunner, it’s always been sweaty, shouty, riotous pits full of eager people, all similarly feeding off the high-voltage atmosphere in the room. The crowd is amped before the band even appears onstage, as they let the entirety of ‘Chop Suey’ by System of a Down play from the speakers which froths the room up as everyone tries to sing along. The members are in rare form as well, with Rosenstock having celebrated a birthday the night before and bassist/keyboardist John Dedomenici set to have one soon. Even at the back of the room, here among their biggest-ever headline crowd in Boston, it proves impossible not to feel connected and awed by how Rosenstock almost seems to defy the laws of time and outpace his own lyrics on rapid-fire songs like ‘HEAD’, seemingly only appropriate as its lyrics detail how the deluge of large-scale problems can make a person feel like they’re wired to explode. This interplay between the large-scale effects and their individual consequences is especially at the heart of HELLMODE – there’s shit staining the heart of the world, doom affixed to the roof of your skull.
Rosenstock’s songs have always leveraged his well-honed senses of dynamics and build-up, which are showcased throughout the night as they slot in older favorites in between the eleven tracks of HELLMODE which the band plays in order, just spaced out. There’s ‘Festival Song’ with its tongue-in-cheek instigation of the crowd clapping together in unison, and the apprehension and isolation of ‘Nausea’, whose loud solo vocal in the bridge (perhaps the most famous line about an egg-white sandwich ever written) builds to a huge, stomping conclusion. One of the finest lines from the new record comes in a slower moment, a literally riotous call to action delivered by a narrator worn down by trying to ward off the fatigue of the world – though the crowd is entirely the opposite, a seemingly inexhaustible resource of energy to spin up a circle pit or haul each other up into the air, giving venue security a workout ushering them down and back out to the crowd (usually for another go-’round). From the vantage point of the balcony, it’s cheering to see how good-natured everything is down in the pit. Just as Rosenstock’s music takes punk and augments it without losing its vitality, the crowd follows suit; taking the concept of a mosh pit, which in hardcore punk always runs the risk of being mindless fist-flinging, and changing it to something more intention, chaotic good as opposed to chaotic neutral.
The band playing HELLMODE in its entirety is fortunate, as it gives voice to the quieter bits of introspection Rosenstock delves into on the record. ‘HEALMODE’ and ‘LIFE ADMIN’ both detail his search for some sense of peace, even as his geographical relocation to the West Coast put more front and center the smoggy, smoky soft-end-of-the-world hanging over us all. He’s developed a slight consciousness of guilt about success, confessing that he does indeed make enough to “fuck off to the desert” for a bit; hardly an undeserved privilege, but the anthropocene has a way of underscoring happiness itself with a tinge of squirming uncomfortability. As they play the song in the second half of the night, they draw out the outro, although it lasts for longer than intended as power fails to some measure of equipment on the stage, and all concerned keep singing the refrain a cappella while the issue is fixed. Approaching the last pair of songs from the album in the setlist, they arrive at ‘GRAVEYARD SONG’, which is effectively its defining statement. It rejects the constant push for compromise and reconciliation as the world falls down around us: “fuck building bridges, everybody start digging – a graveyard for the things that need to die”. As is so often true both in the political and interpersonal senses, there comes a point where there is only wasted air in trying to converse when a guilty party cannot even be convinced they ought to be sorry. Try as you might, you can’t reconcile and rebuild your way out of a death spiral.
Before the show, Rosenstock had Tweeted a poll asking if fans wanted the “long set” or the “loooooong set” for the Boston gig, a question he facetiously repeats when they return from the encore break after ‘You, in Weird Cities’ and ‘3 SUMMERS’ brought the crowd action to a peak. But they’re ready for more and enthusiastically cheer for the longer option, and the band obliges with six more, all from WORRY. While Rosenstock’s catalog doesn’t lack fantastic records, critical consensus is correct that this one, in particular, stands out, transformative both for Rosenstock’s music, his career, and the wider punk genre. Its seventeen tracks will etch themselves into your mind, and the audience absolutely revels in this conclusion to the evening – it feels like it could go on forever and no one would mind one bit. As he has always done so well, Jeff Rosenstock gives plenty to chew on emotionally and intellectually, and an amazing, raucous show to experience all that collectively.
