Labels: Deep Elm
Review by: Andy Malcolm
EMO DIARREAH! IT IS BACK! Remember when Collective reviewed all these and moaned about every song? You hated those reviews? TOO BAD. Ok, lets see what Deep Elm believes passes for emo these days”¦
Above Them “” this starts off quite nicely, like it might be a piece of light, early 21st century emo / indie, a bit downbeat and slow paced, then it devolves into really terrible shouty, sub 100 Reasons grunge. Disgusting for two minutes, before rocking away at the end then going bad again, the quiter bits are quite tolerable too. Features heavy breathing. STALKERMO!
Tiger Meets Lion “” this doesn’t pass for emo under anyone’s definition. Boring indie that goes nowhere fast.
While You Were Gone “” This sounds like a more emo rock Lemuria. Totally cheezeball rockage, but I am INTO IT! Catchy as fuck, good vocals, good riffage! Being a pathetic sexist, I let dodgy bands with great girl vocals get away with it far more easily than dodgy bands with try hard boy vocals.
Knockout Kings “” Blink 182mo. I hear so much bad music at work every day that this kind of thing actually sounds half appealing, which is distressing. Whiney vocals over fun riffs. Utterly dire, but amusingly tolerable if you have low standards, although it wears out it’s welcome in a hurry.
Andy Tanner & His Grand Piano : wannabe epic post-rock / indie emo, with a piano. This is the kind of thing Deep Elm is renowned for. Some nice twinkles, and not bad, but this sounds very formative and gets a bit dull, the vocals are mediocre. Listen to Arrows instead
The Crash Engine “” tedious intro, this is total Polepostionmo. Fucking abysmal
The Decoration “” fairly standard indie rock, gentle, listenable, but far too tame and un-remarkable. This band needs to listen to more Bob Nanna and less Coldplay.
I’m Fashion, You’re Victim “” WHAT A GREAT BAND NAME! THIS BAND IS MORE SCREAMO THAN ORCHID EVER WERE!
Young Hearts “” Imagine Blink182 covering Braid. You get a horrifically catchy song with no nutritional value and lots of bad shouty vocals. Irritatingly infectious.
The City Beautiful “” Finally, a band that is vaguely influenced by Sunny Day Real Estate, if only in the vocals. The rest of it is mediocre 80s cheese-rock with terrible guitar effects and production.
My Awesome Compilation “” derivative MTVmo for the shit generation. They don’t even feature Ricky from the Jay Schraeder Band any more. Bogus.
Panel “” Horrendous shouty shit
So, uh, Emo Diarreah 11! A mostly failed attempt at reclaiming something that has supposedly been mis-appropriated. The sad fact is: pretty much everything on here could have been straight out of the mainstream. Not so much “Taking Back What Is Ours” rather “Submitting Meekly and Admitting We’ve Been Beat”.