Big Smack’s Debut EP Deftly Crafts Fun Out of Grievance
Most bands, by their very nature, don’t make it that far. If you’re lucky, you get to celebrate reaching the finish line surrounded by your fans, many off whom are also your peers. Beloved rock band Choke The Pope celebrated calling it quits at the Sunset Tavern on January 7th, 2023, after having released a brisk swan song that encapsulated everything great about the band over roughly 15 minutes of music. Their body of work, like that of most defunct bands, gets stronger over time; it’s easy to miss what’s no longer around.
Fortunately, a lot of what you may have enjoyed about Choke The Pope - brief blasts of tuneful pop-punk narrated by Nick Vazquez’s lucid sneer - is prominent in Stuck, the debut EP by Big Smack, which is essentially a spiritual successor to Vazquez’s earlier band. In fact, it probably goes beyond spiritual. Stuck is compositionally Vazquez’s child, with fellow CTP guitarist Sean Dwyer behind the boards and drummer Paul Davis returning behind the kit. The rest is guests; Lightweight Champion’s Aaron Spieldenner lays down the bass, and musical polyglot Charles Wicklander’s organ/keyboard work becomes the real (and perhaps only) sonic differentiator between Big Smack and Vazquez’s older band. (Well, that and the occasional, cleverly implemented vocal effect.)
Even lyrically, the two projects feel of a piece. It’s still Vazquez making his bloodletting feel as fun as possible. It takes about five seconds for him to set the stage on “White Coat,” where a party taunts a depressed, lovelorn Vazquez on the other side of the wall. His MO, as before, is setting up characters that plaintively skewer their insecurities (and the ways they cope with them) and trusting that it hits his listeners the same way. “I like to make fun of my problems/If only that could truly solve them,” he laments on “Lately,” then tips back a few downers and watches his voice pitch down in response. On “The Hard Way,” he’s strung out on any/all addictions and watching the car crash without the ability to stop it; “Perfect World,” in continuation, captures the contemporary bear trap of getting to curate your entire experience.
The EP concludes via its fantastic title track, on which Vazquez rides the line between acceptance and resignation at his seemingly eternal dissatisfaction. The sentiment hits harder if you consider that he’s been vocalizing that dissatisfaction for almost a decade now. The saving grace is that he and his bandmates have spent that whole time sharpening their ability to craft fun out of grievance, and that practice turns Stuck into a no-brainer. Let it soundtrack your whole summer, every good and bad day.