By: Magda Wrzeszcz
Maybeshewill | website | facebook |
Released on August 25, 2014 via Superball Music
When Maybeshewill announced their fourth album, I jumped for joy and straight away called shotgun on reviewing it. I’ve loved them for so long, I’ve seen them a ridiculous amount of times, I’ve got a fan tattoo and I Was Here For A Moment, Then I Was Gone was the first review I wrote for Echoes and Dust and that started a whole different level of life-changing events. Who else could possibly review Fair Youth but me? When I received the reviewer’s copy it was as if Christmas indeed came early.
Let’s go back in time, to our childhoods. Let’s go back to the early 90s, when CD Walkmen became a thing and everyone wanted one. You wanted one so badly. You made sure everyone knew how badly you wanted it. Then Christmas come you open your present and – you got a Mini Disc player. It’s not that bad. It technically does the same thing. But it’s not what you were hoping for and you know that those CD Walkmen will always be better than your Mini Disc player. It’s a bit of a music-nerdy metaphor for my experience with Fair Youth.
It opens with ‘…’ and sets the tone with soft electronics, building up the suspense to ‘In Amber’, where the piano kicks in takes us to Maybeshewill’s comfort zone of piano crescendos – however I’m used to them more racy, sharp and breathless. The song build up to an explosive momentum with higher pitched keys to drop into a delicate guitar-plucking and cymbals that glisten like stars in the sky. The song’s finale, with brass joining the strings, gives it an epic edge. It’s all very… pretty. This really is the best word. ‘You And Me And Everything In Between’ brings more of the same and so it continues until ‘Sanctuary’, which finally brings guitars to the forefront and includes distorted vocal samples. Towards the finale strings join in and again we have a racing climax.
The strings in the opening of ‘Asiatic’ bring to mind Rumour Cubes’ sound and the violin sounds of nostalgia and longing, emphasised by melancholic piano towards the end. This is the first song where I can pick up on the emotion of homesickness and perhaps loneliness while on the other side of the world. ‘Waking Life’ – another highlight – starts with very high notes and gets even higher. This one has the wing-spreading factor that post-rock can give you, that feeling of being able to run down the hill at full speed, take a leap of happiness and simply take off. With this song the album really awakens. The prolonged outré reminds me of watching the sun slowly rise and shine some light on a hill.
‘Permanence’ brings back the piano, which I think I must accept as the Maybeshewill trademark sound. ‘In The Blind’ and ‘Volga’ close the album perfectly – ‘In The Blind’ still runs, but ‘Volga’ puts the pace to sleep with soft choir, delicate guitar and a sense of mellowness.
It certainly follows the direction set by I Was Here For A Moment – the sound is polished to perfection, it’s heavy on the racing piano crescendos, the melodies are very pretty and electronics are coming through nicely. It was meant to be a positive album, one that would allow the band to offload the feelings of constant motion while on tour, the nostalgia, longing – and that certainly has been achieved. In terms of accessibility, this is most definitely the easiest Maybeshewill album to listen to. Matt Daly’s piano is very pleasing on the ears and Jamie Ward’s production took Maybeshewill on the heights of perfection sound-wise. James Collins on drums also comes through brilliantly and becomes the heartbeat of each song. My only problem is that I can hardly hear any of the three guitarists and they are the ones who create the best show when on stage.
It seems like with Fair Youth Maybeshewill have entered my ‘God Is An Astronaut category’ – before I saw them live, GIAA were my go-to ‘easy listening post rock’ because of the electronics that would overshadow the guitars. It was only when I saw them at O2 Academy Islington for the first time and their guitars put all the other instruments to shame – only then I crowned them my favourite live band and they never let me down. I have a feeling this will be the case with Maybeshewill. I *know* when I go to see them at ArcTanGent and at the album launch show that they will deliver a jaw dropping performance, Jamie will be kicking air with his bass, John Helps and Robin Southby will rock out, I can hear it, I can see it – but I just don’t feel it on the album.
I completely understand that every band has to evolve, their sound has to change – and with Maybeshewill it’s becoming very apparent, since they gained a permanent key player, the band became very heavy on keys. But it was the roughness that made me fall in love with their sound and that roughness is gone. And as much as I understand the concept of a positive album and I think it’s brilliant – on the whole it doesn’t make me want to take off and fly. The piano crescendos race – but not quite fast enough. The climaxes are slightly anti-climactic. I know I am biased, after all I’m their biggest fan (or at least I’d like to think so), but at the moment ‘To The Skies From A Hillside’ and ‘Critical Distance’ are my two alarm clocks. There isn’t a song on Fair Youth that could wake me up.
Having said all of that – this is a good album for ‘entry level’ post rock fans. Hopefully it’ll inspire them to dig into the band’s history so that eventually they can all stand with us, the veterans, and shout from the top of their lungs “Now we’re apart though not through choice do we stay mute or raise our voice?”.
