Musicurious

Released on: 24 April 2012
They’re from: Boston, MA
Sounds like: what American Football would sound like if the band members were angsty instead of sad.
Hear it: Bandcamp

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I’ll admit, I only checked out You Blew It!’s new album Grow Up, Dude because the band/album names were so odd. I’m hoping that by writing some words about it that you will listen for entirely different reasons.

You Blew It! play a quintessentially-early 00s brand of emo. Think lightly mathy instrumentation, pedestrian vocals with an emotional rasp, lax but completely listenable production, and tons of heart. Basically, the definition of today’s “twinkly” genre. I use this description a lot, but these guys are a sonic time machine. I think early Saddle Creek acts when I listen, like Gabardine or Park Ave., I think the old roster of Deep Elm Records.

Is there merit beyond the nostalgia trip, though? That I don’t know. If you’re a fan of sleepy, lo-fi indie rock, You Blew It! definitely don’t blow it. But you also won’t be blown away? Okay, okay I’m making shitty puns time to wrap this up.

“Good for Bond, Bad for You” is a pretty choice cut. So is “I’m Bill Paxton.” If you’re on the fence, skip there and see how the music hits you.

Olde Pine! Twinkly and mathy as shit! I don’t even care that they’re aping the old school so hard, because fuck, I miss the old school. Listen to this post-haste if you dig on American Football, Mineral, nostalgia, etc.

stupidsongsthatmakemefeel:

Artist: Olde Pine

Album: Reservoir

Year: 2011

Genre: Emo, Indie

Download

Facebook / Bandcamp

(via diostrio)

Genre: Post-rock / Emo
From: Melbourne, Australia
Dropped: May 2009

Regret-o-Meter: I have as many regrets as the Pokemon Trainers on Nugget Bridge in Pokemon Blue. …I regret that reference much more.

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I downloaded this album, no lie, because I loved that the track lengths increased on a steep curve: 1:45, 5:57, 8:46, and 15:29. You could classify this as an EP, but with a runtime of 31 minutes, it’s actually longer than Further Seems Forever’s Hide Nothing. Chew on that.

These Hands Could Separate the Sky is good shit, plain and simple. Think Explosions in the Sky meets Mineral. Think American Football meets This Will Destroy You. Or, if you’re too lazy to do musical mental math, just think Moving Mountains.

Save Yourself is brimming with quintessential post-rock ambience and quivering tremolo. Interspersed between the long sections of musical dreamscapes, however, are angular guitar work and desperate, unpolished vocals— the very same stuff that makes Pneuma such a classic album.

The opening track, “She Turned to the Wind, and Then Was Gone” paces methodically with a certain ominous weight, fading silently into the background as the first few seconds of “Break the Horizon” wildly spatter a colorful mess of angsty, old-school emo energy onto the canvas of your eardrums like a post-rocking Jackson Pollack. “Patient is the Sea,” however, takes cues from it’s name, and, while maintaining a steady pulse, remains patient and restrained.

Naturally, the highlight of Save Yourself is the sprawling title track that ends the album. The opening minutes billow placidly with tremolo like ripples on the surface of an undisturbed pond, melting effortlessly into a marching drumbeat that finally builds itself up to a previously unheard of level of heaviness. The track peaks with sludgey, sloppy tremolo and thick, crunchy bass before waning back into gentle ambience. But, a sudden resurgence of heavy bass with a chorus of chanted vocals marks the album’s final crescendo, powerful, throbbing and enveloping, burning out at its brightest.

Save Yourself is definitely a diverse and moody post-rock hors d’oeuvre, and These Hands Could Separate the Sky have a ton of potential. My only real complaint is that it’s too short. I’m looking forward to hearing more from these dudes in the near future.