Album Review: Abendrot by You Blew It!

Over the last couple years I've listened to some really amazing records that transcend any stigma that the 'emo revival' brought with it. Modern Baseball, The Hotelier, Annabel, Prawn, Signals Midwest, Dikembe, Dowsing, Sorority Noise and anything related to Evan Weiss are among the few that stand out. You Blew It! follow suit with another melodic, twinkly record that pushes forth with a fuller sound, building on the warmth and promise of records old.

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You Blew It! frontman Tanner Jones once sang, “I’m tired of all these toss ups and all this feigned motivation/But I’ve always felt fine singing in your basement,” but that was two years ago—before they played much bigger rooms opening for pop-punk institutions Taking Back Sunday, Motion City Soundtrack, and the Wonder Years. In interviews for their third LP Abendrot, Jones commented that “at some point you start to become less pleased with songs you wrote for basements and living rooms. ” For a young band on an upward career arc, this might indicate an embrace of the loud, obvious gestures necessary to level up: a preemptive non-apology to the hardcore, protective fanbase as a much larger one awaits.

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It’s strange that one of the most limiting musical genres has become the most open. While emo has often been viewed as a one-dimensional sound, over the past two decades it’s hewed closer to indie rock, and been more generally experimental than the hardcore scene it spawned from. The newest crop of bands—once haphazardly collected under the “emo revival” tag—have all gone in different directions, seemingly without concern for how that maturation would be classified.

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