A long-overdue look back at a band we all loved.
A quick note: The following offers an admittedly long-winded retrospective on a band that personifies the term underrated: Centro-Matic. My original intention was to shine a spotlight on the 2006 release, Fort Recovery. For my money, that album represents the band’s high-water mark and a perfect place to start for the uninitiated.
That said, rather than simply heaping a pile of praise on the album and leaving it at that, I decided to dive a little deeper. The Centro-Matic catalog is pretty substantial, but it’s all essential listening in my opinion, a case I will do my best to make below.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been a decade (and counting) since Centro-Matic said farewell with 2014’s Take Pride in Your Long Odds. Famously namechecked in Jason Isbell’s “To a Band That I Loved,” the fuzz-drenched musical vehicle for singer/songwriter Will Johnson’s ‘rock’ side had evolved into something of an indie-rock institution over the years. Centro-Matic’s prolific nature, both on tape and on the road, invited a false sense of security. The band were an ever-present fixture, until they weren’t.
Of course, given Johnson’s down-to-Earth, soft-spoken demeanor, it will come as little surprise that the end of Centro-Matic was anything but dramatic. Speaking to James Roberts at the time, Johnson offered a candid, if not, underwhelming explanation for the band’s departure: “It had been kind of bubbling about for a little while, to be totally honest with you…It’s just life stuff, it’s not anyone’s fault.”
Now, if you’ve made it this far, you likely reside in one of two camps: longtime fan or simply a little curious about this underground Texas band that everyone (Isbell included) seems to speak (albeit, in the past tense) so fondly of. For those already ‘in the know,’ the rest of this article will likely be a welcome stroll down memory lane. For the curious, however, there’s always the issue of ‘where to begin,’ and understandably so. Diving into an extensive body of work can often feel overwhelming. That’s why starting with a band’s best release typically makes for a sound point of entry.
So which Centro-Matic release is the ‘best’ place to start, you ask? Well, unsurprisingly, it’s complicated (and kinda depends on who you ask). Don’t worry, I have thoughts, but before I make my case, a little context is in order.
After spending his formative years in the early ’90s with the band Funland, Will Johnson moved to Denton, Texas, and began writing and recording his own songs. “I wrote and completed my first song within a week of arrival. I was a little bit of a late bloomer, you know?” Johnson released his solo debut, Redo the Stacks, in 1996 under the moniker Centro-Matic. Sporting some twenty-three tracks, the album runs the gamut in terms of fidelity and genre, but the basic ingredients of Johnson’s writing were there from the get-go: sophisticated lyrics, a solid DIY post-punk ethos, and a surprising knack for melody.
Johnson eventually assembled a proper line-up (drummer/producer Matt Pence, bassist Mark Hedman, and utility infielder Scott Danbom), and Centro-Matic soon became a live fixture on the road. The band’s next studio stint resulted in some 60 tracks–the moodier work wound up on Navigational, while The Static vs. the Strings, Vol. 1 carried the louder, more abrasive material. 2000’s All the Falsest Hearts Can Try followed, and offered a pretty good mix of everything the band had done up to that point.
There is a mixtape-esque charm to those early Centro-Matic releases. Make no mistake, the four full-lengths that Johnson and Co. released between 1999 and 2000 are chock full of classics, but the ‘everything-and-the-kitchen-sink’ approach resulted in a mountain of material to sift through. With a sprawling collection of tracks ranging from alt-country ballads to lo-fi punk-tinged ragers to straight-ahead alt-rock anthems, the band could literally hang with anyone live (and often did).
With a surplus of moodier material accumulating in the wings, Johnson decided it was time to spread his proverbial wings, launching a variety of side-projects and even going so far as to establish a ‘band within a band’ (South San Gabriel). On paper, Johnson’s various groups were, in part, a means by which to organize the singer’s increasingly eclectic output. In reality, the lines were always a bit blurry, but the various monikers at least provided a sense of direction.
With the quieter music relegated to South San Gabriel and his solo releases, Centro-Matic was free to rock with reckless abandon. The effect was both pronounced and immediate: 2001’s Distance and Clime and 2003’s Love You Just the Same found the band channeling their lo-fi barrage through a more polished, accessible lens. A flurry of touring, side-projects, and even a pair of solo releases followed, and by the time Centro-Matic celebrated their tenth anniversary, Johnson and his bandmates had assembled an impressively dense body of work. If Centro-Matic had decided to call it a day right then and there, the band’s legacy would already have been cemented.
Instead, Centro-Matic took to the studio in August of 2005 only to emerge a few months later with their most potent musical statement to date. The resulting twelve-song collection broke all sorts of new ground for the band. Sonically speaking, the band had never sounded better. The loosey-goosey ‘live-on-the-floor’ feel was still there in spades, but the band clearly had the time (and money?) to dial in the production. The result was a mix of loud songs that sounded beyond huge and quieter moments steeped in overdubbed nuance.
At nearly a thousand words, we’re probably safely past the ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ threshold. So, what the hay, let’s dive into this record track-by-track style.
- “Covered Up in Mines” – Ideally, an album-opener should accomplish two things: draw you in and give you a solid taste of what’s to come. With a laid back verse, fuzz-drenched hook, and some impressively potent bursts of feedback, “Covered Up In Mines” is as good an introduction as it gets. You could almost sum up the entirety of Centro-Matic with this one.
- “Calling Thermatico” – The massive riff and Matt Pence’s driving backbeat are a perfect foundation for one of Johnson’s most enigmatic lyrics (and that’s saying something!). This song instantly became a live staple for good reason.
- “Patience for the Ride” – Sporting a ridiculously catchy double-chorus, this radio-ready anthem is proof positive that in another time and place, Centro-Matic could’ve/should’ve/would’ve ‘broken through’ to the mainstream.
- “I See Through You” – A great example of the album’s lush and layered production, this song would feel right at home on any number of Johnson’s solo releases. The line, “Because the more I learn about this world, The less I find that I’m afraid to die” is the sort of timeless wisdom that has meant something a little different each time I hear it.
- “In Such Crooked Time” – After nearly a decade of belting it out at the top of his lungs, Johnson really started to make great use of his lower register around this time. This alt-country ballad would almost feel like new ground for the band if it weren’t for South San Gabriel.
- “For New Starts” – On an album that so often found Centro-Matic exploring new directions, “For New Starts” is the rare nod to yesteryear, largely due to Johnson and Scott Danbom’s tandem vocals (a near ever-present feature of earlier releases).
- “The Fugitives Have Won” – A solid slice of indie-rock bursting at the seams with ear candy galore. Another example of how this band (and album) was probably a little too ahead of its time.
- “Monument Sails” – As close to ‘grunge’ as this band ever got, this has always been a personal favorite. The way that slinky verse riff explodes into the chorus just gets me every time.
- “Triggers & Trash Heaps” – Judging by the EP and music video treatment this song received, the band felt like this mid-tempo gem had ‘single’ written all over it. They weren’t wrong. This is top-tier Centro-Matic.
- “Nothin’ I Ever Seen” – As close to a ‘love song’ as this band gets, the opening verse is just the sort of plain-spoken poetry that Johnson has all but perfected: “This is like nothin’ I ever see, ’cause you been a friend to me, in love & war & in all the combinations of the two.”
- “Take the Maps & Run” – A deceptively catchy, albeit, understated two-and-a-half minutes thanks in no small part to the ba ba ba ba-driven outro.
- “Take a Rake” – For some reason, this album has always reminded me of Failure’s Fantastic Planet. Maybe it’s some of the production choices, maybe it’s the drum sound, I’m not really sure. Either way, the angular riff at the heart of “Take a Rake” definitely feels like something Ken Andrews might’ve dreamed up a decade earlier. From the huge, borderline-prog arrangement to the Soundgarden-esque coda, this just might be the band’s best album-closer. Just all kinds of epic.
So there you have it. Honestly, I could probably just go on and on, but there’s really only so many ways to say, “this song rocks!” And therein lies the hidden genius of Fort Recovery. It’s not like the band hadn’t already made a handful of amazing records, and it’s not like they wouldn’t go on to do the same again (case in point: 2011’s Candidate Waltz). But it’s with Fort Recovery where Johnson & Co. really nailed that whole-being-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts business. Each and every track is an essential piece to the puzzle, and every song benefits from its place on the tracklisting.
Not long after, Centro-Matic would release Operation Motorcide, a companion album that poses an intriguing what if? scenario. According to the band, the collection of “top-notch jams” (complete agreement here) were more than mere b-sides: “We were considering releasing Fort Recovery as a double album but that idea did not work out for some reason. So here are the songs that would have been on Fort Recovery if it was a double album.”
An intriguing proposition, but ultimately, I’m grateful that history played out the way it did, if only because Fort Recovery feels like such a complete statement (and more isn’t always more). Regardless, the remaining tracks from the session are every bit as essential.
And so, twenty years on, the legacy of this album remains as complicated as any overlooked classic. For some listeners, Fort Recovery is little more than an ancillary footnote in the story of that little Denton, Texas band referenced in a Jason Isbell track. For a small cohort of diehards, however, it stands tall as a high watermark from one of the most important indie rock institutions of the 2000s. And for everyone else, it simply never existed in the first place. Centro-Matic might not have made the multi platinum splash that so many of their peers did, but they sure did impact those who were actually listening.
The final footnote to this story is surprisingly upbeat. Beginning with 2008’s South San Gabriel/Centro-Matic double album Dual Hawks and its companion EYAS (that cover of “All Night Long” is just plain awesome), Centro-Matic would spend the next decade or so churning out one classic after another before gracefully bowing out. We should all be so lucky.
Postscript: Patterson Hood of Drive By Truckers about Fort Recovery: Centro-Matic’s music comes on like a sound from a distant dream, something new, yet unmistakably familiar. Clear images adding up to something a little vague, but in such a comforting way. I find myself singing along with their songs the first time I hear them. They’re the best live band in America and know how to make great records. Bunches of them (they’re prolific as hell) yet somehow they keep getting better. All of this while playing an exhausting 150 shows a year.
At any rate, Fort Recovery is my favorite Centro-Matic album. My favorite album by my favorite band. That’s a beautiful thing that I hope to never outgrow. One of life’s pleasures that I look forward to passing on to my kids. When I was in fifth grade my favorite band was Pink Floyd and my favorite album was Dark Side of the Moon, at fifteen it was Bruce Springsteen and Darkness on the Edge of Town. At one point The Replacements Tim held that position. Big Star’s Radio City hovers around there somewhere and lord knows I love plenty of Neil Young and Bob Dylan records.
If I could go back in time, The Stooges Fun House and Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti would all make some mystical list. Centro-Matic is my favorite band that is still vital and intact. All four of them together for ten years now. Their brand new album is their best yet. My un-mastered CD copy is my favorite album of 2006 and honestly my favorite new album of the past five years. I have listened to it several times a day for three weeks straight and like those great masterpieces of old I still find new things to love at every listen.
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