After a couple years on the scene, Portland, Oregon’s Young Turks release their first full-length album ‘Where I Lie.’ With an unrelenting style and a singular sound, this group is not holding back on their début album.
The first thing you need to know about ‘Where I Lie’ is that if you like one song, you’ll probably like the whole album. If you don’t like one song, chances are you won’t like the album at all.
The sound on this album is very similar from track to track. Very fast drums, driving guitars, and a very quick pace with screaming are reminiscent of 90’s punk. Sometimes it’s unclear when one song moves on to the next, which is especially apparent in ‘Knife Club’ and ‘Priceline;’ they sound almost identical. The short song times combined with very similar instruments and lead singer Matt Koenig’s monotonous, never-changing vocals makes this album seem poorly put together. Unless you listen to this album over and over, you will have a hard time picking out individual songs.
<a href=“http://youngturks.bandcamp.com/album/where-i-lie” data-mce-href=“http://youngturks.bandcamp.com/album/where-i-lie”>Where I Lie by Young Turks</a>
There a few bright spots on ‘Where I Lie.’ ‘Northwest Darkness’ and ‘Chavez and Glisan’ offer melodic guitars that break the constant barrage of noise that other tracks produce. These tracks expose the talent in the guitar, giving a bit more interest in the middle of the album. ‘Let Me Sink,’ the last track on the album, is by far the best track on this album. This song finally allows listeners to hear the words Koenig is saying (which are pretty poignant on this track) and shows off what the band is able to deliver. A slower pace allows everything to be heard separately rather than piled on top of each other, and is truly a well-put-together song.
The likelihood of you enjoying Young Turk’s ‘Where I Lie’ depends on what you focus on when you listen to music. Whether it is vocals, lyrics, guitars, or simply the tempo or energy, you will either like or hate this album.
Overall, this album seems to be a rushed collection of short songs thrown into an album with little thought to how they sound all together. One after another, the songs hit you with the same sound and it’s hard to get past Koenig’s toneless, inflectionless, melody-less vocals that override anything the band is trying to put forth. If the final track on the album is any indication of what Young Turks is capable of, the band will have to prove it with their follow-up album.
2/5
‘Where I Lie’ by Young Turks is available now on Animal Style Records.
Young Turks links: Facebook|Twitter|Tumblr|Bandcamp
Words by Jenny Gagas
