The most quoted line from Celebration Rock is the only one that may have some basis in Japandroids' real life experience. "If they try to slow you down/ Tell 'em all to go to hell" is certainly a universal sentiment, one that can be applied to your high school guidance counselor or the Phoenix Coyotes' blueliners. But just think for a second how it relates to Brian King and David Prowse, guys who realized they're lifers in a game rigged entirely to their disadvantage. Punk rock isn't expected to celebrate anything other than the outdated Kurt Cobain archetype, co-opted by fashionistas and tastemakers as a perverse enforcer of elitist, 1% ideals. Audiences are seen as a burden, anyone who parrots even his most nebulous principles is invariably applauded. Meanwhile, aspiring for apolitical, communal uplift is viewed with suspicion. Those born into artistic wealth are lauded for both their God-given gift and their means of squandering it in the face of the less fortunate, either by wanton prolificacy, drugs, self-negation or self-harm. If you were merely born with Kurt Cobain's haircut, you can land a modeling contract.

And here we have two beer-drinking guys in t-shirts and jeans from Vancouver, on a label primarily known for Midwestern emo. They use distortion and amplifiers for their intended purpose, to exaggerate already outsized songs rather than obscure them. "Here we are now, entertain us"? Fuck that—King and Prowse write lyrics by imagining themselves as someone who paid $20 to sing them back to the guys on stage. Entire career arcs were completed in the three years it took Japandroids to come up with a half hour of music they were proud of. This is the context that led King, the creative voice behind the most beautiful, life-affirming rock record of the decade to say, "I don't consider myself to be a very creative person."

There are many superficial reasons to love Celebration Rock and most of them make the listener well up with incapacitating joy and hug complete strangers at Japandroids shows—every triumphant guitar riff, every blazing solo, every drum fill and every WHOA-OH-OH! strives to be the best part on the record, demonstrating an irrepressible joie de vivre because they want you to believe that every waking moment could be the one that changes your life forever. But Celebration Rock can move you to tears if you recognize the profundity in King's point of view and relate to it: it's the antithesis of "effortless cool," an album created by people born without "the gift" and are ready to go to any fucking length to get as close to it as humanly possible. And that means hitchhiking to hell and back on Fire's Highway for a blitzkrieg love and a Roman candle kiss, swearing off sleep to work the adrenaline nightshift just in case a generation's bonfire starts to burn, taking your lover's hand and fighting through fear and uncertainty, hearts beating like continuous thunder. For people who understand that, Celebration Rock is holy scripture, eight prayers that don't ask selfishly for "the gift," but for the opportunity to meet fellow travelers on the same spiritual path to true nirvana. We don't wait for those nights to arrive, we yell like hell to the heavens; Celebration Rock is heaven yelling back. —Ian Cohen

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