Dark, brooding, and atmospheric -- the perfect storm
Written for We♥Music by Gus
e-mail // vox
After many, many days of a very premature summer, the clouds gathered in the skies over Baltimore, threatening a much-needed torrential downpour. Indeed, preemptive headaches and upside-down leaves foretold the outcome of the day, as chilly breezes blew suddenly humid air alongside Sunday traffic, while pedestrians unsheathed umbrellas and darted frantically to their cars.
It was before noon that the skies finally opened up, and the greater Baltimore/Washington, DC area was completely drenched. But it was the split second before the skies finally opened -- that heavy, oppressive, droning emptiness -- that really strikes home with me.
As a matter of fact, I was so entranced by that spectacle of complete still that when the rain did finally start falling, I jumped like something startling just happened on the big screen.
That's the power of atmosphere; those whirling, uncertain moments before the deluge contain such unbridled energy. Enter Young People.
With a "sounds-like" list that contains Cat Power, PJ Harvey, The Velvet Underground, and a sound rooted in Sonic Youth, Young People is kind of a tough act to peg. Their sound is the perfect brew of brooding, dark sound palettes and booming, reverberating pianos, and topped off with Nashville-native Katie Eastburn's bluesy, jazzy vocals swirling into a mix as electric as the split second before the storm.
Fitting, for a band whose 2006 album All at Once is, decidedly, the stormiest thing upon which I've ever laid ears. Take tracks like "Slow Moving Storm," and "Reapers." These two songs flow into each other with a static-electric charge that keeps you on the edge and constantly looking over your shoulder -- at any minute that thunder might clap, that bolt of lightning might fill the room with white hot light, and you just might have to run for cover.
Then there's "Forget." This song weaves and creeps like snaking tendrils of pitch-black night, all the while seducing you in with Ms. Eastburn's culling-song voice.
Perfect for those rainy days and Halloweens.
Young People's albums are available for download from eMusic.
It was before noon that the skies finally opened up, and the greater Baltimore/Washington, DC area was completely drenched. But it was the split second before the skies finally opened -- that heavy, oppressive, droning emptiness -- that really strikes home with me.
As a matter of fact, I was so entranced by that spectacle of complete still that when the rain did finally start falling, I jumped like something startling just happened on the big screen.
That's the power of atmosphere; those whirling, uncertain moments before the deluge contain such unbridled energy. Enter Young People.
With a "sounds-like" list that contains Cat Power, PJ Harvey, The Velvet Underground, and a sound rooted in Sonic Youth, Young People is kind of a tough act to peg. Their sound is the perfect brew of brooding, dark sound palettes and booming, reverberating pianos, and topped off with Nashville-native Katie Eastburn's bluesy, jazzy vocals swirling into a mix as electric as the split second before the storm.
Fitting, for a band whose 2006 album All at Once is, decidedly, the stormiest thing upon which I've ever laid ears. Take tracks like "Slow Moving Storm," and "Reapers." These two songs flow into each other with a static-electric charge that keeps you on the edge and constantly looking over your shoulder -- at any minute that thunder might clap, that bolt of lightning might fill the room with white hot light, and you just might have to run for cover.
Then there's "Forget." This song weaves and creeps like snaking tendrils of pitch-black night, all the while seducing you in with Ms. Eastburn's culling-song voice.
Perfect for those rainy days and Halloweens.
Young People's albums are available for download from eMusic.
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