Labels: self released
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Apologies to these dudes, this has been sitting in my pile for some time. Now that my record player is broken, it seems like a good opportunity to dig into these CDs. YNtL already dished up one fine demo of good quality indie emo, and they’ve followed it up with another. Opening song “Harbour” has some of the prettiest twinkles I have heard in a long time, a really melancholic effort with the twin guitar contrasting to perfection. This is right up there with bands like Joie de Vivre and Empire! Empire! but they also have a harder edge, something like Sinaloa perhaps, with one guy sobbing away from the mic at one point, and explosions of noisier guitar interspersed. It’s so nice to hear indiemo treated in this way. The second song gives us some trumpetmo and chimes to cheese things up a little for Christmas, whilst the singer guy wails away resignedly “It’s been a bad year for my family and it’s been hard for us to get through […] and if we could get through Christmas”. Emo.as.fuck. They finish up on “Guilt” with more perfectly judged twinkles like you never hear these days, plus subtly warm and grooving bass, giving us a track that is more Van Pelt than Mineral. Colour me completely impressed.
This is so impressive and the most accomplished new emo band I have heard from these isles this year. They are clearly in a thrall to a particular era of music but when they do such a good job with it, who is complaining? Lovely. Guys, lets put a record out in 2011.