The Wrens’ The Meadowlands is a musical masterpiece of hurt, disappointment, and failure. The album was released seven years after their previous effort, the soon to be back-in-print Secaucus. The New Jersey band had been dropped from their record label (then known as Grass Records) after a new owner changed the name (to Wind-Up) and gave them an ultimatum of producing popular songs for the masses or making music some place else.
The Wrens chose the latter. Wind-Up found their mainstream band in Creed (and, later, Evanescence), and our heroes’ musical future was in limbo. The answer for band members Charles Bissell and brothers Greg and Kevin Whelan was to move in together in Secaucus, New Jersey, located just outside of New York City, and work on their music when time allowed between their everyday jobs. Released in 2003 on the Absolutely Kosher label, The Meadowlands was six years in the making and now seems destined to become a classic, if not for the masses, then certainly for anyone who can relate and identify with the pain and uncertainty so gracefully found in the album’s songs.
It’s been so long since you’ve heard from me got a wife and kid that I never see and I’m nowhere near what I dreamed I’d be I can’t believe what life has done to me
Those are the lyrics, in their entirety, to the album’s first track. The brief ”the house that guilt built” (all track titles are in lowercase on the album), perfectly sets the tone for the remainder of the album. There’s always a tendency to scoff at such “woe-is-me” type lyrics, but this is not the stuff of teenager angst.
Part of the album’s charm lies in the raw emotion the band has clearly put into the record. It’s the sound of individuals with their backs against the wall and the adversity they’ve faced has fed their creativity. The second song, "happy," builds and builds and builds to a rousing celebration of self-pity and hope. It’s a nearly epic beginning, promising, and ultimately delivering, great things.
I find the next song, “she sends kisses,” a little sub-par in comparison to the rest of the album and probably listen to it less than any of the other full length tracks. All the themes explored throughout the album are still there, but the keyboard-heavy music is a little too slow to fully win me over, although, the lyrics are especially strong and almost painfully intimate.
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