Labels: Deep Elm
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Cripes, volume 3 already?! Deep Elm is pumping these out like blood from a slashed wrist, which may or may not be the self same scenario you yourself find occurring after listening to a couple of these songs.
Free Diamonds – This actually sounds like Meneguar and Rapider from Horsepower, which is kind of weird and not what I would expect on this comp. Basically it has the quirky melody of the former and a little of the vocals of the latter. A little sassy in places but overall pretty decent, and definitely the best song on this cd.
Campsite – total NME SHITTY SHITE SHITE ‘indie’. Annoying.
Encyclopedia – Encyclopedia of Jimmy Eat World song techniques. This band enjoy Jimmy Eat World’s cleaned up sound so much that they made this harmless little song with whiney vocals, clean guitars, poppy keyboards and have created the tamest bit of music you will ever hear. Undeniably catchy, undeniably irrelevant
Annuals – soft and gentle, mostly plodding along quietly like if Ida was mostly dudes. Too bad I now hate them after seeing the horrific picture they submitted for the inlay.
Konrad – Showing how diverse TiIR is, the comp proves that not only is it home to terrible indie, but also terrible hip hop
Broken October – Bands still call themselves stuff like Broken October and think they can get away with it? Maybe you might have just sneaked it past the censors in 1998 dudes, but that was years ago. This is just diabolical MTVmo with all the elements that makes everyone hate this kind of thing – i.e. the dreadful whinemo vocals, some shitty chuggy riffs on the chorus and even somebody attempting to play piano. Worst band on this comp.
Popmonster – with a name like that they are surely European (yes, Swiss confirms the inlay), they play fairly laid back and mellow female fronted indie. Innocuous.
Element – nice intro, could pass as some early 2000’s indie rock and this is the kind of band I would associate with the name Deep Elm. Vocals and music are energetic, although the singer can be a bit of a nightmare at times. Quite rocking, post Sunny Day ‘Diary’ kinda thing. Like Sunfactor. The guitars do all the traditional bits from those bands, its quite fun hearing them again as nobody really plays this any more. Or at least you don’t hear them.
Satellite of June – Maybe the Satellite of June crashes 4 months later in the Broken October. This is really horrid, Blink 182 meets Jimmy Eat World. Poppy MTVmo. Urgh.
Reed Kd – downtempo and quiet indie with some warm electronic ambience. Its ok.
Almighty Flying Machine – A reasonable attempt at post-hardcore that perhaps owes something to Jawbox and Burning Airlines. They should try and borrow some of J Robbins song writing ability though as the simple structure gets repetetive in a hurry before they try something else at 2:40.
Softer – ooh, aren’t they clever, all off-kilter jazzy drums on the intro, then in comes the indie twinkles, this could go either way. Ok, its gone the wrong way on the vocals, another one of those trying too hard arena-rock guys that blight the indie rock genre. Builds up into big chugging choruses and ooh the emoting. I bet this guy is really “wrought”. Another band that defines the Deep Elm sound for me.
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Well, this is indie rock. Indie rock is dead. Apart from Built to Spill, Meneguar, the Wrens and Pylon. And Superchunk if they haven’t split up. And I always hope that Rainer Maria will return to form some day. The rest is all average to rubbish.