Record Review // The End of America "Break Away"

$7 //
https://theendofamerica.bandcamp.com/album/break-away //

The name The End of America looks good on a t-shirt and sometimes that's the best way to judge a band.   They do have a t-shirt for sale, but how great is it that in 2019 we can have people wearing hats that say "Make America Great Again" and people wearing t-shirts which say "The End of America"?   I hope that the contrast is not lost on you.

"Break Away" is a more traditional 7" record as it has one song per side.  One of the things I really like about this record as well is that while "Break Away" should be thought of as the single, so you can stream it on the Bandcamp (it'd be bad promotion not to) the B-side of this 7" is a cover of the song "America" by Simon & Garfunkel, which you have to buy the physical record to hear.    It's what my dad would call the incentive to buy the record when you could hear the A-side song on the radio.

With lighter vocals and piano sounds, The End of America makes me feel like I'm in the early 2000's when bands had this feeling of being emo but not.   Names like Waking Ashland, Copeland and Spitalfield all come to mind, as larger labels like The Militia Group, Tooth & Nail and Victory Records were all cranking out this almost lullaby-like sound, but at the same time, many smaller labels and artists were just doing it on their own as well.  It's a sort of post-emo sound in some way.

"Break Away" does kick in though, in the chorus, to where it almost feels like the folk pop you hear on the radio.   It's something like X Ambassadors or Of Monsters and Men mixed with Owl City and Neon Trees, in a pop sense.    This makes it feel like it should be easy enough to say "Oh, it's pop" but the way the different levels of sound combine even just on this one song but The End of America in a genre all their own and one you should definitely have coming out of your speakers.