Thursday, January 27, 2011

You'll Live - Things Would Change If You Heard This



I really wish emo wasn't a slur. That if you wanted to describe a band's music as emo it's because they deal with other emotions than the anger of hardcore and the out and out sleazy sexuality of rock n roll. But instead of awesome bands like Fugazi, Jawbreaker or Rites of Spring the term emo conjures up shitty mall punk post-hardcore bands like MCR or The Used. (Don't get me wrong I actually like some post-hardcore, early Alexisonfire and At The Drive-In are astounding)

If emo wasn't a slur then describing bands like You'll Live would be a whole lot easier. It's the kind of emo that usually stays in a rather calm, melodic moments though the singer never does anything close to singing. His voice is too rough for that, he sounds a lot like Gabe from Monument (who are an rough paralel to this band though Monument are a good ways ahead) but able to launch into a hair raising scream chaotic feeling scream.

The music is an interesting combination of that twinkly style of emo guitar mixed with melodic punk feel that owes an obvious debt to the post-punk school of songwriting, in terms of feel anyway. The material here can seem a little simplistic and that's probably because it's their debut ep but there is still quite an intriguing sound here. There is lots of melody in the guitar and almost always a cute little melodic riff nipping at the singer's ragged voice.

I'm not really sure why this grabs me but it does. There are lots of obvious touchstones here that  if I were better versed in this genre I would be more adept at picking. Suffice it to say this is a good coalescing of influences, now we wait and see if they can add some more personality.

found at Carried Out To Sea which is a really cool blog