Album Review: American Football (LP3) by American Football

American Football have abandoned the dearly beloved house in Urbana, Ill. that graced the cover of their first two albums. That house became an avatar for youthful nostalgia, the band, and Midwest emo itself. Its replacement on the cover of the third American Football LP has an almost sinister beauty to it: a bloodshot sunrise, a creeping fog.

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Between the twinkling glockenspiel that opens the third record by the beloved American Football and the roll call of guest stars, it's apparent something's changed since their iconic debut. It's not just Mike Kinsella's desire to leave behind his youth as he tells us on 'Life Support', "When will it end, relentless adolescence?" American Football's 1999 debut is the sound that came to define a generation of emo: detuned guitars, hushed breathy vocals and the kind of snappy one liners teens with lip-rings and eye-liner get tattooed on themselves. Cut to 2019 and American Football (LP3)'s sound is more expansive than ever, production is slick and Kinsella's lyrics have matured along with him.

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When late '90s emo heroes American Football returned in 2015 with reunion tour dates and a new album that arrived the following year, the main feeling was, predictably, one of nostalgia. The band's legacy, which became significantly larger than the 12 songs and handful of live shows they'd presented in their original tenure, loomed large over a familiar second album that was a welcome return, but never quite saw the band stretch their legs away from the inevitable pigeonholes that come with reuniting your band after nearly two decades away. With their third self-titled effort, American Football become a band again - a functioning, touring band that exist in the present, as opposed to the backwards-looking 'reunion band' that they've been painted as for last three plus years - and this freedom and is splattered all across the record.

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I've never seen so far ahead of me American Football changed the face of emo. A legion of angsty 20-somethings armed with guitars in open tunings and barred with capos dominate the scene still to this day and the weight of Kinsella's guitar wizardry is even felt in the broader world of math-rock. American Football's only record before dissolving and eventually reuniting is the strange record that resonates more today than it did in '99.

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American Football are a product of their time and place. Their debut self-titled LP cemented the short-lived band's reputation amongst emo aficionados in the ensuing decades, despite it being a product of three bandmates barely out of their teens.   Unfortunately, their followup record in 2016 failed to capture the fragility of American Football's debut. Mike Kinsella's vocals couldn't grapple with the glossy production, which was a far cry from the band's lo-fi roots. Consequently, it comes as a surprise that American Football's third ….

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Third time's a charm for American Football, as this new sequel to their seminal 1999 debut sees them expand into more exploratory, even jazzy territory. They're a band revitalised. Coming off the back of reunion so hyped and so unexpected, American Football's 2016 comeback record fell a little flat. Largely reliant on the sentiments and sonics associated with frontman Mike Kinsella's solo project Owen, it failed to push any boundaries in the same way as its 17-year-old predecessor.

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The Lowdown: American Football are no longer a folktale. The band no longer exist as a time capsule of black-and-white photos, a few grainy YouTube videos, and their genre-defining LP and EP, which were released in the late ’90s. After reuniting in 2014 and getting a second record under their belt, American Football have had plenty of time to shake off the rust and expand on their sound, which has turned dramatically more mature and foreboding since getting back together.

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