The band's grace and curse is that it's more song-oriented than sound-oriented. Celebration Castle's opening track, "Glass Conversation," probably could've been arranged in a dozen different ways, and it's possible that this version—all jangle, shimmer, and booming echo—isn't the ideal one. But "Glass Conversation" is hooky and evocative enough to endure whatever the band wants to do to it, and as it happens, Steve Albini's storm-at-sea production brings a level of queasy authenticity to Gummere's recreation of a lover's quarrel. Similarly, the low buzz of "Another Wound" emphasizes its first line, "And then it starts / Yeah, I read your article / Page 19 / In the local magazine," making it stand out as a specific page in Gummere's book of slights. The fact that the song sounds like Killing Joke crossed with Echo & The Bunnymen is almost incidental.
Celebration Castle is primarily beholden to the lovesick-teenager streak that runs through every rock 'n' roll incarnation. Witness the chant-along "We Shot The World," which lays a sinewy, ominous instrumental track under impressionistic lyrics that use post-apocalyptic imagery to describe the generation gap. It's pretentious in the best possible sense, in that Gummere and company are actively trying to explain and evoke the enduring appeal of youth culture. Whether they'll actually reach that culture this time out is another question, but it doesn't matter much when The Ponys can produce a song as perfect and definitive as "I'm With You," a zippy two-and-a-half-minute burst of trash-pop about two bratty lovers kissing off the rest of the world.
