GENRES: Indie Rock, Alternative
TOP TRACKS: Anagram
Indie Rock band Young the Giant, backed by Fueled By Ramen record label have just released their second full length LP entitled Mind Over Matter. After their rather boring and uneventful eponymous debut release in 2010, I really didn't see anything special with this band. It was more of the same. Indie Rock music with that is just to well-polished and completely unoriginal in just about every department.
On Mind Over Matter, real ambition and true creativity (which are traits typically not pushed or displayed by the Fueled By Ramen artists) is nothing you'll see from Young the Giant. They stick to their guns, they've just gotten a little bit better at being mediocre.
The band stacked a lot of the faster pace, radio-friendly, sugary tracks on the top half of this album and a lot of them have some decent instrumentation and melody. For example the track "Anagram" and the two singles "It's About Time" and "Crystallized" all seem like something that will be played by white hipster girls for months to come. I could even see some of these tracks hitting the indie rock radio stations (few they remain) across the country.
Basic components of these songs usually include a mix of rock elements like guitars, bass and drums all used in rather tame and dulled down ways, mixed together with elements of electronic/pop music like keyboards and synthesizers. Of course, these are all topped off by Sameer Gadhia's decent vocals. Overall, this band just strikes me as the essence of mediocre. After I listen to this record I can't help but go "meh" in utter disinterest.
I don't really care for bands trying to be the same as everyone else. And unless Young the Giant can prove that to me and other music fans who are writing them off, they really won't seem to have my support since they aren't making any strides for the genre of indie rock and radio friendly alternative music. This is nothing that Imagine Dragons and AWOLNATION haven't been using to pass off as equally mediocre music for years now.
If you want something interesting, new and worthwhile, avoid this record and explore the catalog of bands like The Strokes, Cage the Elephant or even Neutral Milk Hotel. BUT if you want an easy to digest, slightly dumbed down translation of integrity in music with a few good hooks here and there, check this album out.
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