Right. I’ve rarely stoop to review a record from four years ago on Collective, but on this occasion I feel justified in doing so. This is still easily obtainable (especially in the UK, from Spread and Land of Treason distros) and you have no excuse not to own it. If you do already, you can skip this review. If you don’t, read on. Now I will attempt to describe exactly why you should have this in your collection…
Naturally, for a record as wholeheartedly emo as this one, it comes wrapped in some gorgeous packaging. Stare at that for a moment before you set it playing. The first song drifts into earshot over sparse twinkling, dreamy vocals, and soft talked vocals in the background. And the total beauty of it all hits you. A little further down the line, everything stops, and they all of a sudden they unleash the guitars, breaking into one of those spiralling end of the world emo grooves, incredibly pretty, yet noisy and blemished with screeching guitars. Indian Summer style. Then they wind it back down into the talky vocals again, just like the Summer. Mixed with Van Pelt. Mixed with Christie Front Drive. And as good as the sum of those unconnected parts. I love the way they keep those guitars twinkling but always maintaining a darker edge like they are about to break into chaos again. And the sung part that precedes the heart-wrenching screamy ending. Ohmymy.
And that’s just what you can expect from the first 3 of the 4 songs on here. “Area of a Triangle” is incredibly mellow, twinkles like Van Pelt at their twinkliest, and once again they break into the sweetest sung part ever. This song kills me dead. Just, awesome. “Scattered Blue Light” is all melancholy with spoken word underlying the guitar, swelling up to the dual screamo / crying part, and breaking back down again to the talking part. Oh, just so much goes on in these songs. There’s so much to say, so much to describe. Things are wound up on “Creekside Train”, which is the most Indian Summer-esque of all. The calm before the storm initially, the clouds begin to gather, before everything goes into the draining screams that stay with you till the very end. A fitting finale.
And the lyrics. Well, as emo as you like yet never particularly obtuse. I want to rant about how laughable it is to classify certain other bands as emo when stuff like this has been put out and merited the tag, but I won’t. No one ever listens, and it’s not so important. Fair play to the Get Up Kids and their straightforward tales of love and loss, but that’s never going to quite have the same effect on me as … “i can no longer touch you with my blood stained hands, it’s all on the floor in puddles. it’s only distance love, just three thousand miles lover, somewhere in kansas like two kites flying, i’ll meet you there. that’s why i learned to fly”. Kansas. How ironic.
I like an awful lot of records, but I haven’t been *moved* by one quite this much in ages, a record to strike you down, cause you to lay on your bed and stare at the ceiling. This is all I ever dream that emo can be. Unfeasibly vital. You must own this. You must.