It’s fair to say that emo has come a long way in the past few years. With American Football now seen as cult heroes rather than underground weirdos and the likes of Modern Baseball and The Front Bottoms making ramshackle, lovelorn jams a viable commodity, it’s a genre that’s come a long way. Massachusetts quartet The Other Stars have chosen the perfect opportunity to capitalise on this with new album ‘We Were Kids’.
It’s clear that revolution is not at the forefront of this band’s mind. There are callbacks to pretty much all of the genre’s big players on this album, but it’s done so endearingly that it’s fairly easy to look past the lack of innovation. The likes of ‘Home Is Where You Make It’ and ‘You Looked Better At The Party’ have a pleasantly bouncy lilt to them, especially with Connor Bird’s vocals very reminiscent of Tom Delonge when he’s not faffing about with UFOs.
We Were Kids by The Other Stars
It’s fairly solid instrumentally as well. The guitars on ‘Cape Cod’ still have that spindly awkwardness but it feels a lot more fleshed out, and ‘Caffeine’ impresses with its roaring, grimy riffs.
The thing is though, ‘We Were Kids’ often feels so unassuming that it’s hard to think that this isn’t just a stopgap release for something bigger. And while it may sound harsh, it kind of is – when Modern Baseball’s ‘Holy Ghost’ is released in a few weeks, few people will remember this. But staying in the now, The Other Stars have made a solid release here – definitely enough to tide fans over for now.
3/5
‘We Were Kids’ by The Other Stars is released on April 29th on Take This To Heart Records.
The Other Stars links: Facebook|Twitter|Bandcamp
Words by Luke Nuttall (@nuttall_luke)
