Holy fuck Young Love put on a (surprisingly) good show.
I was expecting to be a little disappointed, honestly. I often find myself enjoying a highly produced CD, checking out the group live, and leave realizing it was all the producer and none of the band. Last night, however, was far from that case.
Adding in a good bit of reverb, a little distortion, and a kick ass live drummer, Young Love transformed from a pop-synth cd to a dirty, dancy melodic journey. “Find a New Way” was turned into an 8 minute long epic - extra guitar and echo filling in the gaps, “Underneath the Night Sky” drew screams of approval and found me, eyes closed, in a far away place, and even “Closer to You” (mediocre on the album) had smiling and swaying along in approval.
Overall, way more impressed than I expected; Young Love the band is thumbs up in my book.
If you’ve been following my posts at all, then you may I’ve noticed that I’ve mentioned Young Love a fewtimes but haven’t really gone into any detail on him.
Well now I am… bitches.
Young Love - Too Young to Fight it
Lets talk about man behind Young Love for a second: Dan Keyes (of former Recover fame). Both Rodeo & Picasso and Ceci N’est Pas Recover had heavy CD rotation way way back in the day. Realizing that this was the same front man was a huge surprise for me; its such a stark change from the old post-hardcore/punk sound his Recover purveyed. Have to love re-inventing yourself.
Check out his (Billy Idol-ish) video for “Find a New Wayâ€
I first stumbled upon Young Love after hearing the Discotech remixes a while back and started to take interest. His MySpace was previously only offering a tantalizing sample of material, but not enough for my tastes; I needed more (its now been updated with album release tracks). So, via the PR magic we do, I’m informed the CD’s in the mail. Sweet. So I wait… and wait…. and wait….
Finally, about 3 weeks later, it shows up in our mailbox (postmarked about 2 weeks prior to when it arrived, I may add). I was actually excited since, for those 2 weeks, I would sort through all the CDs from the mail and find disappointment that Too Young to Fight It was not there… (/me has emo moment). Needless to say, after all of this build up I was seriously hoping for this CD NOT to suck.
And it doesn’t (mostly).
My first spin confirmed my initial impressions after listening to “Find a New Way”: Too Young to Fight It is what The Killers follow-up CD should have been (if they didn’t turn neo-con and follow up what was a groundbreaking album with absolute trite-shit). You can’t deny the infectious sound of both “Discotech” and “Find a New Way” as they have that lingering song power; the kind where you find yourself idly remixing it in the back of your mind while envisioning a dance floor full of nu-rave kids mashing up indie seizures, ass shaking competition champs, big smiles and cheap beer… or maybe that’s just me? Regardless, I’ve yet to find a single person who didn’t like either of those songs (I rocked a house party with “Find a New Way” and Meagan -of DSC/Kiss Atlanta fame - dropped “Discotech” to an unsuspecting crowd on Friday night).
The next highlight comes in the form of the title track: “Too Young to Fight It”. Its a mixture of slightly recessed grungy bass lines, distorted almost 2-step percussion, catchy little keyboard melodies all of which is fronted with the strength of his Keyes’ vocals
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I’m torn from this point forward, though. The remaining tracks from the first half of the album serve as solid listens, but I feel the later half falls off into mostly B-side material. I skipped them initially, only finding a little more interest after accepting they had to be taken with a different frame of mind. While I’m not opposed to an album having diverse sounds and material, I feel it has to hold up all the way through to do so and, unfortunately, this doesn’t. I wish I could just gush and write everything off as a huge guilty pleasure, but I can’t.
Because of the trailing off towards the later half of the CD, I totally overlooked “Underneath the Night Sky” the first time around. Its one of those roll down your windows while driving out of vegas @ 5am type of songs that you want to just close your eyes and feel the sandy desert wind in your hair, but you can’t because, you know, you’re driving.
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Overall I’m enjoying the CD and really looking forward to hearing what he does in a live environment; there’s a lot of potential to rock out the more mediocre tracks and the outstanding tracks will be amazing, I’m sure. For those in the Atlanta area, he’s assembled a backing band and is playing Vinyl on Monday, February 20th. I know Shaun and I will be attendance (I’m even trying to bring a date — wish me luck!).
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