Manic Minors

Once again, this is a review I can barely recall writing, even though it was penned only about 18 months ago. It's not a bad review, I suppose: though if I don't find it memorable nobody else will...unless The Youngs Plan are still seething, of course. One question raises itself: can a worm "crawl"? or do you need limbs for the crawling option? Will we never find those golden answers we so seek?

THE YOUNGS PLAN – EVENINGTALK

Like disjointed bones heaped together in some elephants’ graveyard of song, this EP feels like a jumbled collection of tricks, tropes, riffs and motives thrown together with little thought to the holistic effect. For this is “post-rock”, in its slash and cut, mix and match guise, which is so jerkily unfocused as to come off more like “arock”, if we’re talking prefixes. Not that we’re frightened of challenging, complex music, mind – but simply having lots of little bits doesn’t make something complex; otherwise a bag of pebbles would be complex. At least you could use a bag of pebbles as a weapon, whereas this EP comes off limp and ineffective.

Which is all a terrible, terrible pity, as The Youngs Plan can make a powerful noise live. We’ve seen them twice, and it was well worth the effort. This is doubly impressive as they’re relatively young musicians (hence the name? Will they hang around long enough for it to become an incongruous embarrassment, like Sonic Youth?), who clearly have a fine grasp of their sound, and who play together with an easy grace that belies their years.

The vocals on the recording are rather reedy and broken, often grasping at the note and dropping back down with the booby prize, but the rest of the playing is consummate at every turn – especially the bass – check the almost funky elisions at the start of “Our Getaway Car”, or the cheeky worms of sound that crawl around the start of “Moths”. Sadly all this playing is going to waste, and every time they click into something interesting, it’s immediately abandoned in favour of a twiddly guitar figure or, worse, a Biffy Clyro wasteland. Tragically, the only time they do stay on target, it’s simply to endlessly chant in Jonquilised non-harmony, the line “the rocks that we threw in the river”, which isn’t a line that becomes more profound with repetition.

They say that bands have the whole of their lives to write their first record, and often a mere few months to pen the follow up, which is why second albums are often disappointing. Well, TYP seem to be crowbarring every idea they’ve had so far into this EP, in an excited jumble; perhaps the next record shall offer a more spacious, thought out affair in which their talents can shine. It’s disappointing to be so unimpressed with a record by a band so brimming with potential, but this EP feel s like a trek down a long and dusty road – it’s a tedious trudge no matter how many arbitrary twists and turns are thrown in.