Artist: And Then There Was You
Album: And Then There Was You
Label: Indianola Records
Release Date: January 22, 2008
Review by: Eric Pettersson
Tracklist:
1. The Beloved
2. Star Struck
3. 1983
4. As Seen in Madrid
5. Save the Last Dance
6. Sincerely Yours?
7. The Horsemen
8. Fall Fearless Empire
9. The Devil
10. Cool, Calm and Collected
Man, this album makes me feel like I’m in high school again. Not in a bad way either. It just takes me back to the glory days of sitting in class talking about Taking Back Sunday, Fall Out Boy, The Early November, Brand New and the rest, the days when kids like us secretly thought we were emo but knew that to truly be emo we couldn’t admit to the name. Yeah man, those days. It was a cool time. But since then emo and even pop punk have taken on new meanings, ones that don’t fit the same music and that just aren’t as cool. So please excuse me, And Then There Was You, when I call your record emo. Because I’m a little old school, and I mean it in that sense of the word. Believe me, it puts you in good company. It’s just that your driving guitars aren’t overly distorted, and they know how to interweave melodic lines all through crunching riffs. And your vocals are sincere, passionate, and often reach the “top of my lungs” feel that emo always did back then. Everything’s just got that same rough-around-the-edges thing going on that we loved back then, the “I could have recorded this in my bathroom and kids would still eat it up” type of record that we bought every time we went to a show. And it’s also got that “at the forefront” sound those bands all did, but in a modern sense. Yes, despite my nostalgia, I still like your record as a release in 2008. It still fits. It’s still relevant to the times and sounds great alongside plenty of today’s bands on Warped Tour and the like. It’s just that these bands don’t like to be called emo anymore. But whatever you call it, it’s still melodic and passionate rock songs, and pretty good ones at that.
7/10
