Youthmovies - Good Nature (Drowned in Sound)
3/5
By: Jim Carroll
Being a lazy hack, Oxford's post-prog whatnot art rockers Youthmovies had me racking my brains trying to think of puns from movies from my own youth. Sadly, I failed. But whilst listening to Good Nature in the midst of my nostalgic reminiscing I couldn't help but think of how Youthmovies are like the biogenetic engineers from Jurassic Park. I could almost feel Dr. Ian Malcolm over my shoulder like a chaos theorist conscience whispering; 'Youthmovies were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think whether they should!'
Good Nature is a schizophrenic bricolage, careening at breakneck speed from genre to genre, often within the same track. If you are a verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middle eight-chorus kind of soul then you are out of luck. This is math rock in the truest sense of that overused and devalued term. There are more time changes than in the Back to the Future trilogy (Ok, so I thought of one pun) and Youthmovies' song writing style is a scattergun one, firing off indiscriminately in all directions. The trouble with scatterguns however is that, invariably, they are hit and miss. Too often here alien elements are seemingly thrown in for shock effect with little forethought as to whether the song will sound better.
With this smorgasbord of genres, you come across a section you find yourself falling in love with, but all too quickly it evaporates, replaced by a section that is nowhere near as good. 'If You'd Seen a Battlefield' has elaborate post hardcore hammer-on licks that the Kinsella brothers would be proud of. From this promising start though it descends into a mire of chugging power chords, then electronic tribalism that sounds like a Battles b-side, before wending finally into Black Sabbath rock operatics. 'Shh! You'll Wake It' starts with an uplifting 'Ghosts and Vodka'-esque verse before descending into a faux Sonic Youth guitar work out before a jaunty Britpop section. Opener 'Magdalen Bridge' is perilously close to being an out and out three minute pop song, peppered with euphoric jazzy brass. To dodge this bullet, Youthmovies tack on four minutes of sub-'Treefingers' atmospheric ambience onto the start. It's almost as if it's there just to try and be esoteric, and it just smacks of post-rock tokenism. There is a fine line between genre defying pop iconoclasm and wank-for-wank's sake, and it is a line that Youthmovies cross a bit too often.
The end result is an overwhelming feeling of ambivalence. Of course, it's a contextual nightmare, but there is nothing necessarily wrong with that. Post-prog odysseys are fine, and in this album you can find some of the most wonderfully intricate post-hardcore, infectious indie-pop, and jazz rapture you could hope to find. But you're going to have to work for it because there's also a lot of chaff. As the quality peaks and troughs so alarmingly it leaves you wondering whether they should have just stuck to the stronger parts. Ultimately you will be left crying out for a more decisive editor, as Youthmovies should really have left a lot more on the cutting room floor.
Artists in this article: Youthmovies
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