Review Summary: Laredo are what Moving Mountains would sound like if they recorded out of their basement.
Bands break up. It’s tragic but it happens. Teenagers everywhere will at some point or another throw on that Ramones shirt, get a few friends to start playing guitar, and try to start something that they’ll most likely only ever achieve while tucked away quietly in their beds, lost in a land of sex, drugs and rock n roll, trapped in the confines of their own imagination. It’s music industry Darwinism; the best will rise above the densely populated regions of mediocrity and will be taken notice of. They’ll get their rightful praise eventually, if it’s to mainstream indie acclaim from Pitchfork or to a growing niche of hipsters at the local shows, someone is bound to notice talent. Cue the entry of Laredo, a band that was crafted and destroyed under the cloak of obscurity. I’ll be honest with you; I know virtually nothing about this band. After scouring the depths of the internet, I found two things worth noting. 1) Laredo is a city in Texas famed as being the Mexican gateway to America 2) Laredo doesn’t even exist as a band anymore. They’re done and dusted, gone their separate ways, or to put it simply, they’ve broken up. A quick glimpse at their discarded last.fm page shows a mere 352 listeners enjoy what they’ve created. This is something we need to fix.
To be concise, Laredo are what Moving Mountains would sound like if they recorded out of their basement. Like Moving Mountains, Laredo often find themselves sitting on the fence between the genres of post-rock, post-hardcore and indie rock, however they boast a much rawer sound than the polished New York outfit, one that complements the vocalist, who has been likened by bloggers to a “deeper-toned Jesse Lacey”, who just as often sings as he does shout (which is not a bad thing). Songs like opener “Returning Gone” show an obvious talent for songwriting, as a sprawling 9-minute highlight that makes good use of the post-rock soft-loud formula as well as a catchy, fractured chorus that begins with the shout, “I need to breathe”.
Little touches like the heavy breathing at the end of the slower, more calculated “Rest” or the wailing guitar behind the wall of sound on “Growing” are welcomed and help give the songs identity in a situation where they could just as easily have been flops; victims of meandering songwriting that doesn’t go anywhere. However, Laredo avoids that pitfall with grace and apart from the drawn out instrumental “Delicate”, each song could easily be there best. I don’t have the heart to choose.
If you would allow me to be cheesy for a moment, I’ll let you know the real secret behind this band. Throughout the 7 songs, there’s an overwhelming sense of something bigger than us. The band is able to create songs that betray that modern context of the tough-as-nails music industry and make us believe in those teenage dreams of stardom. On “Rest”, the vocalist sings “My face is scarred up from these months of winding pavement” yet by the end of the song he leads us to the point where we believe there is something at the end of the road.
Bury For Growth is a modern Greek tragedy. It showcases a band with so much potential; talent that we as listeners know will never be built on, due to the bands unfortunate split. It’s musical blue balls. It all comes to a finish and you’re sitting there aching for just a little bit more.
