After a quiet few years, the Minneapolis-by-way-of-Alaska emo act Granddad is back with the brand new EP What Happens After, just in time for Bandcamp Friday. The release follows up Kellen Baker and Matthew Harris's tumultuous 2018 record Quitter, which chronicles the growing pains and aimlessness felt in your teens and early 20s. Instead of dwelling on the past, Granddad looks at what's coming next with this new EP.
Change is rarely quick and easy, and that is on full display on What Happens After's opening track, "Not Twenty Anymore." Twinkly guitar riffs break up emotionally wrought lyrics about growing as a person. The opener feels like a natural response to the Quitter track "Slacker With a Death Wish." The desire to be better is still there, but now, growth is a response to being unsatisfied with what you've become. In the bridge, Baker sings about forgetting his early 20s, so he can contend with "becoming a brand new person overnight / Who won't remember / Won't put up a fight." Granddad's resolve shifts slightly as they move into "Heaven." The track straddles the line between nihilism and self-actualization, and the band manages to offset their bleaker moments on the song with hooky guitar riffs and dance-y drum beats. There may be "no one waiting for you in heaven when you die," but at least Granddad keeps you from becoming paralyzed by that reality by keeping it catchy.
All of the weight from trying to be the best adult possible drives the next track, "Feeling Alone." Its undulating opening guitar riff gives a sense of unease while Baker laments about finding a way to express feelings isolation brought on by exhaustion over keeping the dream alive. In the context of the desire to create your own destiny found on "Heaven," "Feeling Alone" is that moment when it all falls apart, even if for a brief moment.
As What Happens After comes into its final few songs Granddad's twinklier indie-rock side reappears. "Maybe" deals with wanting to escape to that place where you feel safe. All the messier parts of life have obscured where the band wants to be and they are left questioning if drinking at a Wisconsin dive bar is really how they want to spend their life.
Granddad brings everything home on "Without You," a track about realizing that person who makes everything bearable might not right for you. Things aren't quite working out. The tension and resentment in Baker's voice during the line "I know we got a problem / But this time they're not mine" adds a sudden moment of clarity to the feelings sitting behind a thin veil. "Without You" suddenly turns into an absolute knuckle dragger for the last quarter of the song. The guitar becomes sludgy and drummer Matt Harris switches to a halftime groove. The EP ends with everything sitting just below the surface spilling out for the world to see.
What Happens After is less of a direct sequel to their last record and more of an older sibling, experiencing some residual effects of growing up. All the pressure to get your shit together and be an adult doesn't usually go away. At some point, you gotta say "fuck it" in an attempt to preserve your own sanity. I've always loved Granddad's ability to turn dour lyrics into cathartic moments to scream along to. We don't have things figured out, but at least we can revel in that fact together.
Also featured on the EP is Jeremy Warden (Double Grave), Sam Stahlmann and Allie Pikala (With Iowa In Between), and Roddie Gadeberg (niiice.).
Proceeds from the EP is going to the Anchorage Black Femme Fund in Alaska and mutual aid funds in the Twin Cities. Buy What Happens After below, available via Brace Cove Records.
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