PARTNER NEVER GIVE UP ON THEIR QUEST TO SHARE THE POWER OF ROCK MUSIC
Partner are a very funny band, but they are not a joke.
Their debut, 2017’s In Search of Lost Time, filtered classic rock riffs through a Weezeresque alt-rock lens. But it was the band’s penchant for stoner humour in their lyrics and the skits interspersed between its tracks that drew the most notice.
Legalization appears to have been good to bandleaders Josée Caron and Lucy Niles, whose travails have moved beyond being stoned in public to bigger concerns like the power of rock’n’roll. On sophomore album Never Give Up, they double down on the rock tropes, rewriting the genre’s founding mythologies through their unique tonguein-cheek lens, from a guitar that gives its player mythical musical powers (“Honey”) to rock music’s ability to bring people together (“Rock Is My Rock”).
But Never Give Up also expands their riffcentric template. “The Pit,” “Good Place to Hide (At the Time)” and the Jim Steinmanesque “Roller Coaster (Life Is One)” grapple with mid-20s malaise over soaring instrumentation far more sublime than the rest of the album’s riff-o-ramas. They’re some of the record’s most satisfying listens and offer a look at where Partner’s future might lead.
At times, Caron and Niles’ ambitions run up against technological (and financial) hurdles. Steve Chahley’s production on Never Give Up is impressive; the guitars and drums in particular sound huge, and there are plenty of little flourishes fleshing out the spaces in these songs. But the vocals can feel a bit tossed off, the band’s DIY aesthetic brushing up against their big-budget inspiration.
Overall, though, this is another triumph for the band. Where their debut found the pair pulling humour out of life’s little indignities, here they show how to overcome them, usually by rocking, better, harder, faster and more often. Far from being a onenote act, Never Give Up proves that Partner are a band with endless musical possibilities before them. ( You’ve Changed)