Youthmovies - Good Nature

This album starts off as though you are being transported to a planet through space; there is a hum and drone that opens up into spacey melody. Then the guitar and vocals come in and the planet we arrive in is Earth. This is the opener Megdalen Bridge, with crisp drums, beautiful guitar melodies and really good use of horns. It’s a perfect opener for an album.

The Naughtiest Girl Is A Monitor is the first single to be taken from the album; it comes in with some sweet synth sounds and the drum rolls into beautiful lyrics about teenage landscapes. The main hook is infectious and is a real grower. The song chops and changes in song structure with the guitar, drums, bass and horns intertwining and gaining in intensity.

Soandso & Soandso starts with a horn hook that really gets in your head, I find my self humming it some days. Then a wall of heavy guitars comes in with a more complex take on heavy metal; This soon switches to more sweet, softer, melodies and then back again. Taking you with it on every turn. This music is defiantly from the heart. The lyrics ‘if you can’t please your self then don’t try please anyone’, followed by the chant of ‘It bubbles and blisters’, is really well executed. This song then seems to deconstruct its self as it comes to a close with epic segments of guitar and horn flourishes. It almost feels prog rock in some places yet stay the right side of ridicules at all times. It’s a mix of post rock with some math sensibilities.

The Last Night of The Proms comes on like a Metallica song with a tighter shifting rhythm section. It has chugging and duelling guitars. The vocals as always are really sweet and sweep over the soundscapes. It all breaks down into an epic spazed out guitar rhythm that builds back into the metal riffing. This album has many complex twist and terns.

Cannulae is possibly my favourite on the album it comes in with a sweet acoustic hook and lyrics and an irresistible percussion section that punches in at you like an old house record, that goes from 4x4 time to more complex and shifting rhythems and back again, into a full on house beat. Beautiful strings and horns also accompany this, it’s a beauty to behold. The whispered chant of ‘rattle snakes, snakes snakes’, that it finishes with really burrow into your brain too.

If You’d Seen A Battlefeild is another favourite of mine there are some beautiful tappy guitars. The lyrics really stand out in this song they really work well with the guitar and horns. The drums as always are very tight and really bring this record to life. This song burst into noise and then kicks of on a chugging grove with horns and guitar playing off each other to tremendous effect. Then back into the main lyrical hook again. This shifts into some funky guitar work and a nice bit of bass work in another section of the song, there are so many bits to each song that each one takes you on a journey.

Shh! You’ll Wake It again starts with a bright horn hook and intertwined guitars, its really energetic and joyful. Then comes the sweet melodies of the vocals and strings sweeping through which lock to the drums and propel forward. This all spaces itself out into group sung vocals.

Something For The Ghosts is another sweet sounding one with beautiful melodies, skitting drums and vocals all over it. This breaks into some rhythmic bass and spaced out guitars that marches along almost to prog rock territory. This stays away from that mind by having spaced out noise guitar solos and tappy rhythmic clean guitar lines. It is however, extremely epic. It’s a good album track, not my one of my favourites though.

Archive It Everywhere I really like the use of the word ‘Alveoli’ in this song it’s sung beautifully it’s achingly beautiful; the guitars work really well with the bass here. The mid section of this song brings out the epic sweeping melodies again and not the heavy guitars.

Surtsey is the final track and comes on like a jolting rubix cube, with jittering guitars and drums. Then drives off, taking you with it, with a joyful energy. The sweet vocals skip through and heavy guitars come and go as they switch with beautiful melody strewn pieces.

We don’t stand still often with Youthmovies, its all part of the joy of them. This album is a real grower and has so much to explore and much of it burrows deep in your brain. Its sweetness is beautifully offset with complexity and heavy sections that play off each other and dance together. Then it suddenly ends with a jalt. This is one of my albums of the year so far.