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LATEST ARTICLES - PAGE 125

Review: ThreadBear – Fine By Me

threadbear album art
Mia Hughes

There’s not much of a tradition of emo in the UK. In the 90s, emo developed so geographically that the generally-used term for it is ‘Midwest emo,’ since its sound was incubated by bands like Cap’n Jazz from Illinois, The Promise Ring from Wisconsin, The Get Up Kids from Missouri. That’s not to say that that scene was by any means insular; Texas is the Reason from New York, Jimmy Eat World from Arizona and Mineral from Texas all had distinctly ‘Midwestern’ sounds, and the forebearers of any one of those bands were Sunny Day Real Estate from Washington state and Jawbreaker from California. Plus, none of it would have happened without the Revolution Summer bands from DC, most notably Embrace and Rites of Spring, and perhaps, more importantly, Fugazi which sprung from both of them. Cross-country touring, plus zines and demo exchanges, meant that emo was pretty effectively shared across every corner of the States. Many of those bands did tour the UK too – Braid and The Get Up Kids went over there together in 1998 – but it seemingly wasn’t enough to imprint on the UK its own parallel scene, at least not one that made enough of an impact to enter the canon of emo as we talk about it twenty years on.

What we have now is ‘fourth-wave’ emo (also known as emo revival), a spiritual continuation of that Midwestern scene, with the difference being that this one was and is built heavily around Bandcamp, Twitter, and online blogs like PropertyOfZack, The Alternative and, yeah, Chorus.fm. Since house shows and local community amongst bands are still key to DIY, it didn’t bring about a total eradication of geography – ask anyone about the Philadelphia scene, for example – but it does mean that now there’s no ocean for music to travel, bands that emulate the 90s Midwestern sound can pop up anywhere.

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Review: The Lumineers – III

The Lumineers - III
Adam Grundy

When The Lumineers set out to record the follow-up their highly successful sophomore effort, Cleopatra, the band managed to raise their expectations for what would become III. The album is presented in three chapters: each coming with their own set of themes, topics, and overall feel. The album itself progresses nicely as it unfolds over these chapters, and co-founder/multi-instrumentalist of The Lumineers, Jeremiah Frates mentioned in an interview that, “This collection of songs worked out in a beautiful way, and I feel with this album we’ve really hit our stride.” The confidence that comes through on this record can be felt, but it’s a bit of a departure from the upbeat nature of their second record. What we are left with is an “artist’s record” that stays true to who The Lumineers are as both people, as well as musicians.

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Review: Sturgill Simpson – Sound & Fury

Sturgill Sound and Fury
Craig Manning

At the end of 2016, Sturgill Simpson managed maybe the most unlikely Grammy Album of the Year nomination of the modern era, for his third LP, A Sailor’s Guide to Earth. A few months later, he lost that particular award—to Adele—but did manage to walk away with a Grammy for Best Country Album. None of those things are going to happen again, and it’s not because Sound & Fury, the long-awaited follow-up to Sailor’s Guide, isn’t great. Rather, it’s because Sound & Fury 1) isn’t a country album, and 2) is even more blatantly unmarketable than its predecessor.

In a lot of ways, Sound & Fury is an anomaly in the 2019 music world. It’s the sound of a guy who was once hailed as a country music savior—first for his trad-country debut High Top Mountain and later for the experimental, boundary-pushing Metamodern Sounds in Country Music—callously tossing that mantle in the fire. It’s also the sound of an artist who was on the cusp of superstardom—maybe not quite Chris Stapleton/arena-concert-tour level, but close—walking away from it. Finally, it’s a loud, dirty, unapologetic ‘70s-style rock album—the kind that absolutely no one makes anymore. The guitars are so loud and so prominent that they sometimes threaten to drown Sturgill’s voice out entirely. Not that he’d probably mind.

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Review: Breakup Shoes – So Money, Baby

Breakup Shoes - so money, baby EP
Trevor Graham

The inherent nature of a “goal” is to be currently out of reach. Whether far down the road or just fingertips away, goals are the checkpoints we set to help us navigate the uncertainty of life. But the problem, ironically enough, is that uncertainty turns out to be one hell of a goaltender. It’s a relentless opponent that’s not above mind games, and if left unchecked, will tug at the threads of our insecurities until we’re left completely unwoven. Fortunately for So Money, Baby, the Arizona quartet known as Breakup Shoes have provided a bit of sugar for the pill, pairing soda pop sweet, surf-flavored indie rock with a bare-skinned attempt to snip the thread and prevent further undoing.

Mid-album single “Accessory” hits on the central theme surrounding vocalist Nick Zawisa’s core emotional vulnerability — an unrequited love. With a warm, muted bass tone, Derek Lafforthun drives his bandmates through mellow verses in a lackadaisical swagger, crafting a melody of his own before giving way to a subtle, but undeniably strong vocal hook: “I just want to be what you hold close / I just want to be who you love most”. The majority of the lyrical content throughout So Money, Baby is spent this way, deliberating on “what if” scenarios penned by a hopeless romantic. Frankly, there’s not much to be said for it — often left to be desired across the record is a semblance of nuance in exchange for the melodrama. But in the moments where Zawisa opts to deviate from the norm, he briefly lifts the veil to a more compelling premise: the longing to be wanted at all, and the seeping dubiety in meditating on his goals of finding any form of significance in a life outside his own.

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