This week Brighton up-and-comers (and Already Heard favourites) The Gospel Youth release their superb second EP – ‘Empires’. It’s five slices of brilliantly well-structured summery pop-rock that needs to be heard.
So having delivered an EP that has won many over, we decided to find out what bands influenced The Gospel Youth whilst writing ‘Empires’. Sam and Julian from the band decided to go one further and give us five albums they consider influences. We have to admit they’ve made some great choices.
Mayday Parade – A Lesson In RomanticsSam: For me, this band with this album, is everything right. There’s elements of everything, but not with it being overkill. The vocals, the harmonies, the guitar riffs, the drum feels.. it’s just an incredible showcase of talent and it’s something we wanted to come across with ‘Empires’ as we all pushed ourselves to write the best mix of songs we could. The emotion in their vocals is exactly what I wanted to convey in ‘Stay Positive’ and ‘Empires’ which are both, lyrically, darker than the rest of the songs and I wanted that grit and passion to shine through. I write songs because they’re about things I’ve gone through or still am going through, I want people to feel like they’re on the rollercoaster of life right there with me.
The Xcerts – In The Cold We Smile
Julian: I don’t know a single person that has a bad word to say about this band. The way they manage to write insanely catchy songs without being too sickly is an art and something that only a handful of bands can actually pull off. They’ve finally been getting the recognition after their latest release but what I would say to new fans of the band is go back and listen to where it all began with ‘In The Cold We Smile’ because I guarantee it’s better than 99.9% of the albums you’ve heard already. They’ve been around for years but have always released consistently good music which is something we aspire to with The Gospel Youth with ‘Empires’ being our first brick in the wall.
Jimmy Eat World – Futures
Sam: This was actually the hardest one to decide on because how do you narrow down which is your favourite Jimmy Eat World album!? For all of us, despite naming ‘Futures’ as one of our five, it’s actually the band as a whole that we’re picking on. Consistently, release after release, they continue to bring out some of the best songs and showcase their true ability of why they deserve to still be here. This particular album will always have a sweet spot though, as it’s practically soundtracked every moment of my life, from the insanely beautiful moments to the dark places I never wish to visit again, but yeah they’ve been a huge influence on The Gospel Youth.
Deaf Havana – Fools And Worthless LiarsJulian: Again, another band that has been around for as long as I can remember, they absolutely nailed it with this album. It’s another prime example of songs written and crafted in such a way that they’re insanely catchy without losing credibility. Every song on this album could have been a single, which is something we always aim for and have in mind when I’m writing for a release. If a song isn’t single worthy, it probably isn’t album worthy either. Deaf Havana set the bar for all other bands in the genre insanely high, ‘Fools And Worthless Liars’ has been a constant inspiration for me when writing ‘Empires’.
Fall Out Boy – From Under The Cork Tree
Sam: Everything about this record resonates with me constantly. I once had a nose bleed at a club in Southampton to ‘Sugar, We’re Going Down’ because I sang too loud haha. Every single song on this album is huge and has the ability to leave you stuck with the melodies for days. It’s something that, as a singer, I’ve always used as a staple in my vocals. If I write something and it doesn’t annoy me caus I’ve got it stuck in my head two weeks later, I won’t keep it. There were bits of ‘Empires’ that I nearly changed so many times, vocally, but I couldn’t get them out of my mind so they stayed and to be honest, I’m so happy with them now.
’Empires’ by The Gospel Youth is out now on Speaking Tongues.
