Release Date: Jan 25, 2011
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Indie Rock
Record label: Roadrunner Records
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What’s in a name? In a world where The Tallest Man on Earth is hardly 5‘8’’, Caribou isn’t an animal, and Wavves is spelled with two v’s, it’s a legitimate question. Young the Giant, although a strange title, could not be a more accurate one. The California quintet boasts an average age of 21 and will, without a doubt, become giants when the world gets ahold of their self-titled debut.
The West Coast jazz-evoking album jacket of Young the Giant's self-titled debut doesn't exactly paint an accurate picture of the California quintet's breezy modern rock sound, but it does complement it quite nicely. Here's a band signed to a heavy metal label, whose music is anything but, and which actually excels through recurring shows of subtlety, not force. That's not to say Young the Giant don't know how to rock; tracks like "My Body," "Garands," and "St.
Though one of Young the Giant’s main USPs is their multi-cultural make up – its five members come from European, Middle Eastern and French-Canadian backgrounds– their sound is a far cry from such diversity. It has been a good couple of years for them, no doubt. Stephen Patrick Morrissey lists himself as a fan (does he even like anyone anymore?) and Roadrunner has signed them alongside their repertoire of metal and hard rock bands – Young the Giant fitting in like Feeder and Lethal Bizzle at Download Festival.
These guys started off as a band named the Jakes. Somewhere in the last couple of years, though, they changed their name to Young the Giant. I’m not sure what it says about the band that they would go from an utterly generic name to one that’s downright stupid, it just seemed like an odd choice. Maybe there’s a story behind it.
As his regard for bands such as the long-forgotten Bradford and the thuggish Cockney Rejects attests, Morrissey has never been the greatest judge of talent. The latest recipients of his praise are Young the Giant, a California five-piece whose derivative indie rock is as tame as much of Mozzer's own recent work. Sometimes they sound like an anaemic Coldplay; at others they're a sweatier version of the Shins.
Young the Giant recall any number of fourth-tier alt-rock bands from the early 2000s-- groups like Audiovent, Injected, and Tantric, who served as grout between the latest Linkin Park and White Stripes singles, every bit as functional and anonymous as their names suggested. Young the Giant not only sound like these bands to a certain extent, but their self-titled debut fits this mold philosophically as well. In recent years indie rock has been increasingly appealing to commercial interests, yet it's hardly seemed to be growing out of an assembly line in the machine room of the Big Music Industry.
Tipped by Morrissey, this Orange County quintet could be the next Coldplay. Andy Fyfe 2011 There’s an unwritten but often-observed indie law that states the more praise Morrissey lavishes on a band then the inverse success will follow. It has happened numerous times down the decades, ever since people started claiming this or that act to be ‘the new Smiths’, in fact (Bradford, Raymonde, Gene…).
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