Youth Group - Skeleton Jar
Album of the Week
Date - 2005-11-20 00:00:00
Youth Group's first single, "Shadowland", is ravaging the airwaves in the Boston area, getting heavy airplay on FNX and thus inserting their sound into my consciousness. Thus, after Thad and I aborted the awful experiment that was "trying to come up with words to truly reflect the experience of listening to Broken Social Scene", we quickly agreed to review this much, much more accessible album. I hadn't heard much other than the aforementioned single, however, and now I know that Youth Group is the polar opposite of a band like Broken Social Scene - they are simplistic, predictable and repetitive. And yes, I might have just found three different words to say the same thing.
Now, don't get me wrong - Youth Group isn't bad, per se. The combination of fluid guitar riffs, straightforward drumming and a somewhat unique, expressive singing voice has carried many lesser bands to a few albums and a decent presence on FM radio. Youth Group pulls off this combination very well, resulting for them in a very smooth sound that rarely falls into "unlistenable" territory. However, the frustrating aspect of Youth Group is that they refuse to step outside a very limited scope, choosing instead to write eleven songs that effectively sound the same. I don't mean like Radiohead's brilliant The Bends, where all the songs form a cohesive album. I mean that every single song sounds the same. "Shadowland" is the first track and definitely the strong point of the album. "Baby Body" is a decent listen, but all the other songs just run together to the point where I simply cannot differentiate them. There is a good foundation of music here, but at least switch it up a little. Please?
The other problem I have with Youth Group is the quality of lyrics. Simply put, they sound like a sophomoric version of their mentors, Death Cab for Cutie. What does that mean? Well, they try to pour as much emotion as they can into every song, but they lack the ability to execute gracefully (see this for an example of graceful lyrics). There is no subtlety and no great imagery, leaving the voice as little more than another instrument to play out somewhat predictable melodies.
Ok, so I was kind of harsh in this review, I think. Let me backtrack a little. First, I think there is a lot of potential for growth with this band. Hopefully they can turn into one of those bands that parlays a mildly successful debut into a very strong second album. Of course, the key is that they progress in the overall "songwriting" arena to become both musically more adventurous and lyrically more interesting. Right now, they are good enough to warrant "background music" but not nearly strong enough to warrant "listen on the drive home".
Score: 5.5/10
Now, don't get me wrong - Youth Group isn't bad, per se. The combination of fluid guitar riffs, straightforward drumming and a somewhat unique, expressive singing voice has carried many lesser bands to a few albums and a decent presence on FM radio. Youth Group pulls off this combination very well, resulting for them in a very smooth sound that rarely falls into "unlistenable" territory. However, the frustrating aspect of Youth Group is that they refuse to step outside a very limited scope, choosing instead to write eleven songs that effectively sound the same. I don't mean like Radiohead's brilliant The Bends, where all the songs form a cohesive album. I mean that every single song sounds the same. "Shadowland" is the first track and definitely the strong point of the album. "Baby Body" is a decent listen, but all the other songs just run together to the point where I simply cannot differentiate them. There is a good foundation of music here, but at least switch it up a little. Please?
The other problem I have with Youth Group is the quality of lyrics. Simply put, they sound like a sophomoric version of their mentors, Death Cab for Cutie. What does that mean? Well, they try to pour as much emotion as they can into every song, but they lack the ability to execute gracefully (see this for an example of graceful lyrics). There is no subtlety and no great imagery, leaving the voice as little more than another instrument to play out somewhat predictable melodies.
Ok, so I was kind of harsh in this review, I think. Let me backtrack a little. First, I think there is a lot of potential for growth with this band. Hopefully they can turn into one of those bands that parlays a mildly successful debut into a very strong second album. Of course, the key is that they progress in the overall "songwriting" arena to become both musically more adventurous and lyrically more interesting. Right now, they are good enough to warrant "background music" but not nearly strong enough to warrant "listen on the drive home".
Score: 5.5/10
Finally getting around to this. My apologies for the wait, I've been busy of late and when you combine that with my tremendous laziness, well, you get something.
Anyways, Youth Group. Eh. So I heard their song "Forever Young" that I guess was on The OC. I watch the show and don't really remember it but that's neither here nor there. I liked this song, so I had reasonably high hopes for this album.
The first time through, I was like, this is pretty alright. And then I listened to it a few more times and got bored. They have a good sound to them, the singer has a nice voice and they seem to understand what they are trying to do. It's just not really that interesting to listen to.
It's pleasant sounding, as you'd probably expect soft indie music to be, and it's not "emo", which is a pretty big positive in this case. For me, what it comes down to is this: if it came on from shuffle on my winamp, I wouldn't switch it to something else. But I wouldn't switch away from something else to this. If that makes sense. Which it probably doesn't, but hey, I haven't done one of these in awhile, just trying to get back in the flow.
5/10
Anyways, Youth Group. Eh. So I heard their song "Forever Young" that I guess was on The OC. I watch the show and don't really remember it but that's neither here nor there. I liked this song, so I had reasonably high hopes for this album.
The first time through, I was like, this is pretty alright. And then I listened to it a few more times and got bored. They have a good sound to them, the singer has a nice voice and they seem to understand what they are trying to do. It's just not really that interesting to listen to.
It's pleasant sounding, as you'd probably expect soft indie music to be, and it's not "emo", which is a pretty big positive in this case. For me, what it comes down to is this: if it came on from shuffle on my winamp, I wouldn't switch it to something else. But I wouldn't switch away from something else to this. If that makes sense. Which it probably doesn't, but hey, I haven't done one of these in awhile, just trying to get back in the flow.
5/10