Song: “Tear You Apart”

I don’t usually buy albums through iTunes. I’ve only done it once before — with LL Cool J’s latest, because I didn’t really care to have the jewel case. This is the second time I’ve done it, because I heard this song in the car the other day, and then read something about She Wants Revenge being “more Interpol than Interpol,” and there was something to them that sounded like the lyrics of Depeche Mode melted into the music of Bauhaus. But…

I don’t like this album. It is the same sound, over and over. The same droning sound.

Maybe I’d like it more if I was a fan of Joy Division or New Order. Maybe I’d like it more if I was a club kid. Maybe I’d like it more if I was thirteen. Then I wouldn’t mind that the music sounds like my brain smacking itself against my skull, begging for something different.

But there is one thing I like about She Wants Revenge. When I listen to the album alone in my car at night, it feels like:

I’m sixteen years old and lied to my parents to go out to the Axiom in downtown Houston, and there’s a boy standing near me who I know, but I don’t know if he knows me. I can’t tell if he really likes the band or if he’s nodding to the beat because it gives him something to do with his head. He’s standing near me, but not next to me, and I know if I take a step closer to him it’ll look like I’m trying to stand next to him because I’ve already taken at least ten steps in the first place to be at this distance. I could use the excuse that I’m short, and can’t see the band very well from where I am. So I lean closer. My eyes are trembling from straining my peripheral vision to determine if he’s glancing in my direction now that I’m six inches closer to where his body is. I’m pretty sure I just saw him look at me. I try not to look anxious (desperate) as I turn my face toward him to see that he’s looking at me. We smile. Nod. He finds a reason to lean over, yell something about how he saw these guys before, and the last time it was so much better. I pretend I didn’t hear him so I can move a little closer to him. And then we pretend we’re thirsty. And then we leave the crowd. And then I watch him smoke cigarettes in the parking lot as I debate buying a t-shirt so I have something to prove that tonight happened.