Young Widows

In And Out Of Youth And Lightness

Written by: PP on 20/07/2011 04:02:25

Previously known for their abrasive, albeit groovy noise rock, Young Widows have entered a new realm altogether with their new album "In And Out Of Youth And Lightness". Fans of the old material may have a hard time swallowing the exchange of the heavy sections by haunting echo and attempts at ambitious atmosphere that, at times, will remind you of film noir scenes and/or the murky space rock acts of the late 70s and early 80s. Truth be told, I'm one of those people having a difficult time grasping what it is that Young Widows are exactly trying to achieve here.

Granted, there has been a successful inclusion of depth and avant-garde elements into the music to an extent that it wouldn't feel strange imagining Young Widows always having played this style in the past. And yet the problem isn't that the band aren't able to expand their sound to fill the new-found vast atmospheres and spaces they've set out to create on this record, but rather that once they do, it often feels like the songs are going nowhere. The title track of the record, for instance, has an unusually murky sound and feel to it, but although the chorus is decent, the song overall is so consuming and requires some serious heavy-listening that it's easy to forget it when it is over. Following track "Future Heart" then does much better, mostly because it draws back to their hardcore sound with groovy and noisy guitars enjoying just as much distortion as the vocals, making the song sound almost like a Queens Of A Stone Age track from "Era Vulgaris".

The groove continues on "In And Out Of Lightness", but here's where the band begins to dive so deep into the world of experimental music that they are starting to lose me, and most of their old fans as a consequence. It's one of those instances where the song stretches beyond the six-minute mark when it could've been finished off in less than four. It's also reminiscent of the evolution that QOTSA took when they went into that quirky mode of theirs on the last couple of albums, except Young Widows don't do it anywhere near as well.

In the end, "In And Out Of Lightness" contains lots of interesting compositions that will go a long way in satisfying the insatiable thirst of experimental quirk and weirdly progressive space rock-iness of fans of experimental music, but will do little for the rest of us.

Download: Future Heart, Miss Tambourine Wrist
For the fans of: Pissed Jeans, Black Mountain, Sonic Youth, Queens Of The Stone Age
Listen: Myspace

Release date 14.04.2011
Temporary Residence

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