Can't Maintain (stylized as can't maintain.) is the third studio album by Andrew Jackson Jihad.[3]
Production
Jeff Rosenstock played horns and theremin on the album.[4] The release was mastered by Carl Saff. In 2019, AJJ frontman Sean Bonnette ranked Can't Maintain as his third favorite album from the band's six releases to date[5] and described it as "the only record thus far where we knew the sequence going into it."[5] In 2019, AJJ celebrated the album's 10th anniversary by playing it in full at a fundraising concert in Phoenix, Arizona.[6][7]
Track listing
All lyrics are written by Sean Bonnette; all music is composed by Andrew Jackson Jihad
No.
Title
Length
1.
"Heartilation"
2:01
2.
"Self Esteem"
1:36
3.
"Love in the Time of Human Papillomavirus"
2:04
4.
"Evil"
2:06
5.
"You Don't Deserve Yourself"
2:30
6.
"Olde(y) Tyme(y)"
1:09
7.
"Kazoo Sonata in Cmaj"
1:17
8.
"We Didn't Come Here to Rock"
2:23
9.
"Truckers Are the Blood"
3:01
10.
"Love Will Fuck Us Apart"
1:44
11.
"Sense, Sensibility"
2:16
12.
"Who Are You?"
2:40
13.
"White Face, Black Eyes"
3:26
Total length:
28:23
Reception
Adam Finley, writing for PopMatters, described Can't Maintain as one of the best albums of 2009.[8] Robin Smith of PopMatters wrote that the album "opened with scuzzy electric guitars and pounding drums" and called the track "We Didn't Come Here to Rock" a "delightfully ironic rocker."[9]The A.V. Club included the track “Who Are You?” in its list of songs about bad fathers, adding that Bonnette "[coats] his complex emotions in witty one-liners."[10]
Personnel
Andrew Jackson Jihad
Sean Bonnette - lead vocals, guitar, kazoo, glockenspiel
Ben Gallaty - bass, guitar on "Evil", backing vocals
Preston Bryant - guitar on "You Don't Deserve Yourself", piano on "White Face, Black Eyes"
