Face to Face - Shoot the Moon
The problem with Shoot the Moon can be summed up by the following piece of information: the song “Shoot the Moon,” despite being one of the best in Face To Face’s catalog and the name of the album, does not appear on the disc itself.
The title of Face To Face’s recently released retrospective, "Shoot the Moon," references a song of the same name on the group’s extraordinary swansong, 2002’s How To Ruin Everything. The track, as catchy as the avian flu, is also one of the most weathered and mature pop punk song’s I’ve ever heard. Singer/guitarist/only long-term group member Trevor Keith’s voice barks out disillusioned and brilliant lines like “Back in ’95 when this was new / I really didn’t have a clue / thought the world would change with the right song,” displaying a bitter, caustic lyrical bent that in many ways paved the way for newer groups like Alkaline Trio and The Lawrence Arms, over catchy power chords, and a great guitar solo. The problem with Shoot the Moon (the album) can be summed up by the following piece of information: the song “Shoot the Moon,” despite being one of the best in Face To Face’s catalog and the name of the album, does not appear on the disc itself. Only two tracks from all of How to Ruin Everything are included; raucous opener “Bill of Goods,” and the average “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.”
There is nothing from the band’s penultimate release, the creative and extremely well done covers album Standards and Practices. There is nothing from the controversial Reactionary or the overlooked Ignorance is Bliss. There is nothing from their very good split with the Dropkick Murphys.
What is present in place of these oversights? A hook-filled punk album that makes the varied, emotional Face to Face seem like a one trick pony without a good trick. Nearly every track on the album has an identical tempo, and an identical chord progression. God knows why the band chose the tracks they did- maybe they were the most fun to play live or the most fun to record, but by the album’s end, they create a suffocating feeling of deja vus. Hell, the band bookends the album with two versions of their mediocre radio hit, “Disconnected,” the studio version as an opening track and a live take to end the album. Easily one of the weakest tracks in the band’s catalog, the song is an ode to the teenage awkwardness, but cannot rise above overused sentiment like “you don’t know a thing about me” and “I could tell you what you want to hear / just let your inhibitions go!”
There is no sense of development or progression over the course of the disc, but that makes sense, when one takes into account the scant representation from the second half of the band’s catalog. The lyrical content of the selected songs are the kind of phrases that sound great being shouted out in the middle of a mosh pit (I have fond memories of screaming along to “You Lied” at the Warped Tour a few years back), but are also slogans they print on shirts and sell for 25 bucks at hot topic. I don’t want to sound cynical, frumpy and old, but Face to Face were so much more than the straightforward pop punk band they appear as here.
If you are a band that only has 1 radio hit, why bother putting it as the first track and last track on your greatest hits? It negates the value of the songs in between, and, especially when that hit isn’t all that good, begins and ends the album on a mediocre not. Face to Face have a legacy to leave behind, and let's just hope future generations of kids in chucks and spiked leather jackets don’t get the wrong impression from Shoot the Moon. Just two years ago, the band ended their last album with a beautiful acoustic number sporting the refrain “you know I’ll go running out and ruin everything.”
Yeah, pretty much.
(Antagonist Records)