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Young The Giant

Young The Giant

Written by: TL on 13/06/2011 17:20:28

Heads up hipsters, here's a review of another next big thing in indie-rock. A band known as The Jakes while it underwent five years of labour pains, and then finally entering the limelight in 2009, winning a contest with the prize being a support slot for Kings Of Leon. Since then that band got signed by Roadrunner records before even releasing a single album, and decided to change their name to Young The Giant.

Now then, they're finally ready with a debut LP bearing the same name, and its content is some owing as much in reference and resemblance to fellow Americans Kings Of Leon and Vampire Weekend, as to brit-rockers like Arctic Monkeys and Chapel Club. The music is a cool, fuzzy brand of indie, with the dominant expression being fairly laid back. This in itself is maybe not something out of the ordinary, but it gets to be, when coupled with the fine singing voice of frontman Sameer Gadhia, whose voice hits the present trends dead on, sounding like a hybrid of the singers of all four bands I mentioned as comparisons.

Seemingly eager to earn their building hype, YTG start out quite strong on "Young The Giant", with three of the very best songs appearing among the first five. Here I'm thinking of the delightfully lazy "I Got", as well as the up-beat "My Body", but mostly of "Cough Syrup", which has the best vocal/guitar combination of the album in its catchy chorus.

Around the halfway mark however, things start seeming a little underwhelming to me, and tracks six to nine eventually form an unfortunate lull in the album, during which "Young The Giant" withdraws to a role of merely pleasant background music. Fortunately, the boys come back strong with tracks ten and twelve, "St. Walker" and "Guns Out", to finish the album, but the damage has been done, and it's hard not to consider the slight lapse a symptom of things that have yet to be figured out on this first album.

Overall however, Young The Giant are indeed an interesting band and certainly one to make note of, for the way they seamlessly blend the better qualities of a number of the times' most significant indie-rock bands, and for the warm, über pleasant voice of Gadhia. Oh and for the promise residing in the better songs on "Young The Giant" of course. A solid effort then, which holds promise of better things to come, once more experience and more consistent song-writing find their way into the band's skillset.

Download: Cough Syrup, My Body, I Got, St. Walker, Guns Out,
For The Fans Of: Kings Of Leon, Vampire Weekend, Arctic Monkeys, Chapel Club
Listen: myspace.com/youngthegiant

Release Date 02.05.2011
Roadrunner Records