If the Death to New Years EP is any indication of what we can expect from The World Is A Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die’s upcoming Epitaph records debut, said LP is going to find its way onto a metric asston of year end lists.
TWIABP has turned a lot of heads over the years with their eccentric mix of angular 90’s emo and atmospheric post rock, but the two songs on this 7 inch synthesize all of the elements they’ve previously toyed with, as well as some new ones, into something that can only be described as “next level.” The songs meander playfully through a sense of nostalgia and melancholy, occasionally soaring and crashing into a life-affirming cacophony. These songs weren’t written; they were fucking orchestrated.
‘From the Crow’s Nest on Fire Street’ and ‘Outer Heaven’ evoke both a sense of exciting discovery and the warmth of home. There is a sense of newness here, while also remaining reminiscent of turn of the century Saddle Creek and Deep Elm Records releases. That is not to say this is throwback music. In the midst of a current glut of uninspired retreads of a sound pioneered two decades ago, Death to New Years is the sound of a band nodding to their past while forging their own path into the future. This is the rare mark of a band seeing its whole become greater than the sum of its parts.
The best songs sound like they have always been, and, well, I guess I’ve been waiting to hear these songs for a long time, even if I didn’t know it.
JASON SWEARINGEN