Album Reviews

You Blew It! has been a big part of the so-called emo revival along with bands like Modern Baseball, Foxing and The Hotelier. The one thing all of them have in common is that while they fully embraced the likes of American Football, Braid and Cap’n Jazz, they have since evolved. This already made for some really good albums this year like “Holy Ghost”, “Goodness” and last year’s “Dealer”. Unfortunately we don’t get to add “Abendrot” to that list.

You Blew It! still likes a twinkly riff here and there and the kind of vocals you associate with 90ies emo as much as the next guy, but have stepped things up when it comes to dynamics and shifts in tempo. Meanwhile Tanner Jones’ lyrics deal with his mental health among other things and apparently he pushed himself so hard, he ended up in therapy because of it.

Even though most of the songs were written over the course of just four days, the band then spent the next six months letting the material percolate, tinkering with songs structures until it felt perfect to them. They then spent a month in the studio with producer Evan Weiss, the longest they have ever taken out to record an album. This allowed them to experiment more with different recording techniques that included switching up the mic placement for each song, as well as playing with echoes and tape delay.

Yet in spite of all the layers and intricacies of “Abendrot”, I fail to take anything away from it. The album trickles along nicely over the course of twelve songs and you can tell they spent a lot of time shaping and crafting every single song, but in the end there aren’t any memorable moments that stuck with me afterwards.

Track listing:

1. Epaulette
2. Like Myself
3. Sundial Song
4. Greenwood
5. Autotheology
6. Hue
7. Canary
8. Forecasting
9. Minorwye
10. Arrowhead
11. Basin & Range
12. Kerning