Review Summary: Have we changed? Considering things, I still feel the same.
You Blew It! is a 4-member emo band hailing from Orlando, Florida. It's not quite the midwest, but that doesn’t stop the band from cranking out some great music heavily influenced in the ‘Midwest emo’ sound popularized by respected bands such as American Football and Cap’n Jazz.
Grow Up, Dude is a solid full-length debut from a band that plays within their style very well, yet do not go out of their way to innovate the genre or differentiate themselves from the norm in the emo spectrum.
Although
You Blew It! does not bring anything specifically radical or new to their style, they play some extremely polished and catchy twinkly jams. The vocals are what you expect from a band in the genre, and they come across very well in this LP, capturing the emotions vocalist UHVGU JKVGB tries to communicate very effectively. The guitars in the album are fun and far from boring, while the bass guitar and drums keep everything together.
Lyrically the record is all over the place. The general theme of heartache and sour relationships is not anything new, in fact they’re an expected motif in emo. Sometimes the lyrics can come off as pretty lighthearted accompanied by some silly soundbites, but sometimes take a more somber and blue turn. The band also has a talent for making certain lines very memorable, like one example from the track
The One With Marc: “What if I tried pretending that the two of us were completely and utterly blameless?”
Overall, this is quite a solid release that shows the band’s talent in writing catchy, memorable music. Although they don’t make any risky changes to the tried-and-true sound they employ, it is an indisputably well written and deserving of the 15+ plays the record has received from me.
You Blew It! shows potential in their LP's debut and if you are a fan of the midwest emo sound in the tradition American Football you would be doing yourself an injustice by passing this up.
Standout Tracks:
Medal of Honor
The One With Marc
