Youth Novel (studio album) by Youth Novel

From Mercury 04/01/2021 05:36

(This is pretty cool. LOTS of screaming, lots of brutal and loud guitar, and just walls and walls of anguish, with the occasional quiet minimalist Emo that we all know and love.)

Okay, after a couple listens I can't say I have yet formulated much to say on this. Imagine Emo meets Powerviolence and you have, well, the genre Emoviolence and that is the genre of this album apparently per RYM. The more you know. But anyway, that describes this album well. This won't be everyone's cup of tea. But for me there were moments when the vocalist just fit so well with these vicious walls of sound, and in those ecstatic/pure hell moments I was in a whole other planet.

The more stripped down emo bits are also nice and present a nice counterpoint to the more violent outbursts that dominate the album (especially the first half.) In these moments the drumming is surprisingly nice, and active. The twinkly, introspective guitars really manage to tug at the heart strings, and the vocals are more traditional emo screamo stuff. This band also knows when to transition from the soft to the mindbogglingly loud, as whenever I felt like I could use another shot of insanity, there it was with another atomic blast of pain and fury.

Another thing I liked about the album is how it was produced. Now I'm no sound technician nor do I know what the fuck I'm talking about really when it comes to "sound design" or whatever. But this album is not clean. At times its even kinda shitty sounding and muddy and the sounds kinda sound like they are cutting in and out. And I love it. The waves of sound aren't these crystalline Sunbather things, but actually have a bit of grit and a lot more soul. I loved it.

In all, when I saw the genre description I legit laughed. I had only recently come to grips with the term for Hardcore Punk meets Grindcore being called "Powerviolence", and then the genre name creators had to go and up the ante with friggin "Emoviolence"? Really? And when I pushed play part of me was thinking it would be just kinda whiny Nails. But, No! This band has some cool things happening with it. Good and borderline great debut album from this group.