Portugal. The Man – ‘Chris Black Changed My Life’ album review: a fun yet uninspired effort
Many people became familiar with Portugal. The Man, after their Grammy-winning song ‘Feel It Still’ found immense popularity in 2017. However, the band actually began making music back in the early 2000s, releasing their first record, Waiter: “You Vultures!”, in 2006.
Since then, Portugal. The Man have released seven more studio albums, with their newest, Chris Black Changed My Life, coming six years since their last effort, Woodstock. Over half a decade might have passed, but the Oregon-based band haven’t lost sight of their summery sound, creating an album perfect for the warmer, more relaxed period of the year.
Chris Black Changed My Life is far from groundbreaking, but it’s certainly a fun listen. Often, the lyrics feel lacklustre, with the band sandwiching serious topics, like border control, between energetic drum beats and mindless vocal melodies, giving these issues much less weight than they deserve. Still, instrumentally, the band have reached a high point, and you’ll find yourself unable to shake the catchy rhythms from your head, which seem designed to stick.
The album opens with ‘Heavy Games II’, a short piano-led piece which instantly exposes the weaknesses in the band’s lyrical abilities. “‘Cause the present has a past/ Now I’m fucked up forever,” they sing over sparse instrumentation, giving their cliche words complete dominance. It’s not the best start to the album, although the following song, ‘Grim Generation’, with its prominent, smooth bassline and vivacious percussion, makes up for this uninspired start. It’s an easy-listening optimistic track, welcoming choral backing vocals near the end.
A rap feature from Black Thought is the highlight of the next track, ‘Thunderdome’, contemplating “this American life” over spiralling psychedelic guitars. The majority of the song maintains a chilled-out sensibility, and you can imagine its hazy beat soundtracking a drive down the Los Angeles coast. The single ‘Dummy’ is another inescapable earworm, from its “duh duh” verses to its singalong “One, two, three, four Everybody get on the dance floor” chorus. It’s not the most original number, but it’s undoubtedly executed well, culminating with an impressive psych-laden guitar riff.
Tracks like ‘Summer of Luv’ and ‘Ghost Town’ are similar, cheery cuts, although the band spout uninspired lines like “I just wanna live my life breezy” and “NPCs on the hill”, yet again demonstrating a difference in quality between their lyrical and musical abilities. They take a slightly more soulful turn on ‘Time’s A Fantasy’, which sees the band reckon with mortality, before declaring, “I got a feeling that things are gonna be just fine”.
However, this optimism doesn’t last long, as ‘Doubt’ opens with hopeless sentiments like “Life is a dead end”. As the band weave through more questionable lyrical choices, pleasant strings and 1960s-inspired guitar riffs give the song a theatrical quality. On ‘Plastic Island’, Portugal. The Man work with a watered-down loud/quiet Pixies-esque dynamic, arguably the album’s most skippable song.
The band’s inability to tackle heavy themes appropriately is best demonstrated on ‘Champ’, a bizarre clash of genres that moves between silky basslines, a heavy metal-inspired breakdown, soulful jazz and synths. Near the end of the song, a recording of an activist shouting, “Abolish borders, abolish ICE/ Abolish all systems that keep Indigenous people from their natural vibrations,” is shoehorned in. Sure, it’s an important message, but one that feels redundant in the context of the album and wholly out of place.
Chris Black Changed My Life is a good album with plenty of enjoyable cuts that sonically encapsulate the feeling of hanging out with friends, dancing on the beach, and basking in the sun. While John Gourley’s vocals are impressively smooth and distinctive, giving every track a warm atmosphere, the mundane lyricism remains the album’s most significant letdown.
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