Music Review // Eddy Yang "A New City"

https://open.spotify.com/album/4FY5FsuPCLc262eQIQhb1p?si=PYfA30mMReiFS7SMg_NTqA#_=_ //

"A New City" starts with big beats and singing.   It seems like a fitting way for the EP to begin because there is this combination of sounds on here that I feel I haven't heard before and they come together quite well.  On one hand, there is this bedroom pop type of Hellogoodbye feel with the drum machine and all of that (the vocals even too)  But then these guitars just have this tone of a alternative rock band like The Lemonheads or somebody.

The titular track is the second song and it comes on a little bit more country but also like something out of "Can't Hardly Wait".   There is this line "We're 23 and we don't know why" which sticks with me because, ahh, the innocence of youth.   "Release Me" is the third song and it is slower, darker and reminds me of Love Spit Love, which of course makes me feel like this could be in comparison with the "Angus" soundtrack as well, which in some ways is that combination of alternative rock and punk.

"In The City" (not to be confused with the titular track) is the fourth song and it reminds me of the second album that The Stryder did, when Pete took over on vocals, because this has the elements of a rock song that could be on the radio (I keep thinking of Plain White T's) but it goes for a little over ten minutes so you know it won't happen.  Some synth appears before the guitar kicks in and I'm thinking of New Radicals for some reason as well.

This self-proclaimed rock n roll can feel upbeat even if the lyrics aren't always and there is this huge bass line which goes into a wild guitar part to showcase the musicianship of it all, which also recalls The Rocket Summer.    With a supersonic as the final song I'm left thinking of things from the MPLS scene, "That Thing You Do!" and even Dynamite Hack somehow.

Perhaps what's most fascinating to me about these songs is that they could- on some level- fit in with that lost 1990's band vibe that I love so much, but yet, there is that bedroom pop type of element I mentioned earlier that makes me feel more like they're from the 21st Century.   I suppose, though, having music which borrows from the past but doesn't completely live in one time period is what music of the future should sound like.