We’ve been waiting for this. We’ve been waiting much longer than any of us could have ever realized. In Search Of Lost Time, Partner’s first full debut album, isn’t just the most anticipated album of 2017, but perhaps the best album of the ’90s, just two decades removed. It could be a time capsule, deemed too awesome. Without being tiresome, the album is a glorious revisitation of all the poppy, simple, and wonderfully dumb charm that gilded MTV’s golden age.
For months, Partner have been feeding us singles from In Search Of Lost Time, and while we never once complained about it, we did start questioning how many tracks they expected to fit on there. Certainly it had to stop somewhere…. What about the requisite amount of filler? Well, they do have skits if you want to count those, but even those are uncommonly entertaining.
Partner blatantly choose to wear their inspirations on their sleeves, providing an intro skit that mimics late ’90s Toronto cartoon pop stars Prozzäk’s intro to their song ‘Strange Disease’. This intro adds up pretty well with the album’s theme of guilty pleasures, minus all the guilt. It’s all the music we still secretly like from high school. It’s every power chord pulled directly from Big Shiny Tunes 4 though 6, mixed with the spiritual teachings of The Dude.
It feels like a social experiment where the band simply do what they want. They’re not going about it very ambitiously or maliciously, but certainly indulgently. It’s not hard to imagine them going about their day, heedless of any consequences but justified by a presumed payoff of the most relatably human songs, which are broken up by god-like duelling guitar solos.
They manage to cover everything from getting way too stoned in ‘Everybody Knows’ to some hardcore lounging in ‘Comfort Zone’ and ‘Daytime TV’, finding a sex tape in their roommate’s room in ‘Sex Object,’ right down to accidentally dropping your glasses in a toilet, rinsing them off, and putting them right back on in ‘Gross Secret’. It’s the every(wo)man’s guide to living the laissez-faire lifestyle you’ve always dreamed of.
So with Partner finally delivering a flawless album, the only question that remains is: how will we look back on it in another twenty years?