Photo Credit: Clumsy Bodies
The emo resurgence has taken more than its fair share of knocks over the past twelve months, with bands such as Sorority Noise, Moose Blood and Modern Baseball all being shelved for one reason or another. As a result the genre needs a hero, a group to pick up the baton and run with it, and itoldyouiwouldeatyou may just be that band. The group have now ramped up a Slipknot-rivalling seven full-time members including two guitarists, a bassist, drummer, keyboardist and two vocalists. So far they have put out two extended plays and more recently put the finishing touches to their debut full length Oh Dearism.
Album opener Earl, King, Whatever is the perfect embodiment of the kind of musical ground that itoldyouiwouldeatyou can cover. The keys provide a layer of atmospherics that the clean guitars and warm drum sounds rest upon, with the sombre lyrical content of Joey Ashworth adding to the overall mood of the song. When the distortion kicks in and the song steps up a gear, the band shift into a completely different style and sound similar to the Philadelphian pop-punk titans The Wonder Years, which can only ever be a positive attribute.
The following track Gold Rush has an excellent DIY feel to it, as the distortion and unpolished guitar feedback echoes over the impressive drum fills in the same way that you would expect from bands such as Gnarwolves and Basement. The keyboards and well written guitar passages add to the overall sense of melody, as Ashworth spills their guts with their melancholic poetry, with the assistance of their fellow bandmates on backing vocal duties. The harmonised vocals continue into the following track Young American, as we see the first real example of the duo’s trade-off that itoldyouiwouldeatyou do so well. The song is a much slower affair overall, with the soft guitar tones creating another blanket of melody for the rest of the song to build on top of. The melody is slightly off-kilter and unconventional but still sticks in your head long after the track has finished, which is impressive in itself with the lack of a traditional big hook in the chorus.
Gathering Things Together And Not Dividing Them is a wonderful change of pace for the album. The atmospherics created by the synths sound like something that you would find on a Glasvegas album, and when you pair this with the harmonised vocals you are met with something that is truly moving. When the rest of the band join in you get a real ‘big band’ feeling, with the amount of different instruments creating busy work for the ears whilst never appearing to be overwhelming, providing a sound that is epic in scale.
Album closer Goodbye To All That is a master stroke. The music is nothing particularly revolutionary, likened to the sound that Moose Blood created on their Blush album. It is, however, in the vocals and lyricism that this song stands alone. The delivery is somewhat similar to that of Mike Skinner back in the heyday of The Streets or anything put out by La Dispute. Telling the tale of love lost between two people, cloaked in the metaphor of a hare and rabbit which shows the talent for storytelling through music that the band are blessed with.
This album is a triumph. It shows raw emotion in spades when required and plenty of fun thrown into the mix at different junctures too. The lyricism from Ashworth is poignant and well thought out, and goes a long way to drive the music of the band forward. The future looks very bright for itoldyouiwouldeatyou going on from here, and it’s very exciting to see just what they can accomplish with this level of material behind them, at this very infant stage of their career.
8/10
Standout Tracks: Young Americans, Goodbye To All That
For Fans Of: Basement, The Wonder Years, La Dispute
Written by: Richard Webb
