All My CDs, pt 57: Incongruent

Incongruent - Hank Green and the Perfect Strangers

Released last spring, Incongruent is Hank Green's latest and, as far as I can tell, best album by a wide margin. This may be partly due to experience honing his skills as a musician, or the fact that he chose to bring in some other musicians to pool their skills and form a band, The Perfect Strangers. I was already familiar with some of these other guys' work, especially Andrew Huang, but none of them are represented in my collection so far. I may one day decide to change that.

The album's title continues Hank Green's happy pattern of not naming albums after songs. For that I will always love him. And as that title implies, he here fully embraces his complete lack of consistency either in style or subject matter. It seems to directly refer to the lines in Marilyn Hanson that confront the nonexistent barriers between genres:

Dancing to Hanson 
And Marilyn Manson
And I know that that doesn't make even a little bit of sense
That was the point
That beautiful incongruence
We didn't fit
And we didn't care

I was excited to learn that Incongruent would be coming out shortly before my first marathon, because I already knew that Hank Green makes excellent running music, and I knew I wanted the new album on my playlist for that run. As it happened, all its songs are fast-paced and jaunty enough to enliven any jog, save for one, Video Game Books. I could not have been more fortunate.

Even the sillier songs on the album seem better-executed than many of the older songs, and none of them feel particularly dated to me, except for the full English-translated cover of Gangnam Style, which is nonetheless forgivable for its relentless catchiness. (I never really caught the original, but I hear it spread like a virulent disease a few years ago, and everyone is now immune to its charms.) Since it is a dance song, it is naturally also an excellent running song. Even sillier is Mother Pheasant Plucker, a song which has no swear words but almost certainly will if you attempt to sing it as rapidly as Hank does.

That said, the album does not shy away from swearing in general, as in I Love Science, which both joyfully and somewhat defensively extols the wonders of modern technology. The Universe is Weird is similar, but is less focused on defending science against skeptics than on expressing awe and amazement at its more mind-blowing discoveries. Listening to this song, it is easy to believe the adage that the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the coastline of wonder.

Most of the album also expresses joyful appreciation for things like comfortable clothes, ponies, hugging while screaming, and of course Harry Potter. Hank Green's musical career arguably began when he made a video of Accio Deathly Hallows on the eve of the last book's release, and a souped-up version of that song appears here complete with an appropriately incongruent reggae-style digression.

The mood turns dark for a few songs, Undigested Lump and I'd Rather,  which are both scathing tirades against some unnamed foe. I can name a few people who come to mind when these wrathful pieces play. But in spite of such spite, I found Incongruent to be one of the most indomitably joyful albums in my collection. Even the angry songs are enthusiastic and revel in the unique pleasure of a crushing and creative insult.

I'm glad that I got to review this album now, because it's getting me psyched up: the Perfect Strangers, along with Driftless Pony Club, are touring, and I'm going to see them play... today. Having done this review, I'm all the more excited for the opportunity.

Next: The Planets