Young Widows:In And Out Of Youth And Lightness

7.5/10 dropps

As they injected themselves into the vein of post-hardcore in 2006, Young Widows evince that they can pull up their bootstraps using mature dissonance and corrosion of the carefree. Mapping their own destiny, they joined bands like Pelican, Coliseum, Melt Banana, and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy to share separate split EPs over the years. And for 2011, Young Widows’ bats out of their disgruntled cave (or plows out of their urbanite sprawl) of Louisville, Kentucky to deliver a punch worth getting socked with – and it goes by the name In and Out with Youth and Lightness.

Young Widows exude a supple sound with their rigid and suave arrangements. In their freshman years, they brilliantly approached the post-hardcore genre with a formula-free instrumentation, which tour vans of bands have not tapped into. Now, five years removed from their debut album, Settle Down City, and three years removed from the last release, Old Wounds, they have adopted and evolved parts of their DNA into the vein of post-rock. On In and Out of Youth and Lightness, Young Widows have reworked their thrash-y discourse and channeled their rampage into a more atmosphere composition like their post-rock grandfathers, Mogwai, and continue to articulate their vitriolic ohms like Russian Circles. The album visits nine tension-stocked songs and allows listeners to be worth their while (especially buyers who paid for it).

A drum-tapping jingle joined by an anxious, four-note bass line starts off “Young Rivers”, which doubles as the fissure to In and Out with Youth and Lightness. In the scope of Young Widows’ catalog, this first track is an experimental angle for the rock-mincing musicians. The song is fairly minimal in sound and steered by overdrive bass, as per usual for them, but the intensity only reaches a knee-high stature while still inflicting a profound, chest-high presence. The refrain of the song chants, “Young rivers / are overflowing / with a new kind of undone love.” The second track delves into the promotional song of the album, “Future Hearts”, which is robustly upbeat throughout the whole song, and effulgently demonstrates Young Widows’ combo of vengeful riffing and locked-down reverb. Halfway through the song, feedback rings out, Jeremey McMonigle’s allegro is at a steady cadence, and then rifling shots of Nick Thieneman’s bass strikes in and out sounding like a beast ramming down a wet-castle door.

The song “In and Out of Lightness” strongly illustrates the Mogwai vibe as the tail end of the song adjourns with strum-work that seems to hover around the 12th fret and blisters beyond that. At the waist of the album is “The Muted Man” – a mindful portrait of being content with not having a voice speaks – “ Seal up the cracks in my voice / then swallow my pity like rain / to avoid the black cloud/ I am the muted man.” The undertone of this narrative interprets to be politically potent as Even Patterson’s leathery vocals opinionate on apathy and other plights. “Right in the End” is quintessentially Young Windows’ style as Evan Patterson loops a catchy guitar hook, lets it exist in the background the entirety of the song, and then flirts with intricate tones over it. The piquant aspect about this song though is that it has a slowed-down, folk swing to it, which is atypical, yet ambitious for the Widows. The end of the record is reserved for “In and Out of Youth” – a seven and half minute chantey that first starts with a wah-wah pattern, then flows into soothing yet augmented fusions, and concludes with the mantra-splicing of: “These wild dreams are done.”

If one is a fan of Young Widows’ past and present creations, then the live performance of such musical pieces will be flooring. A minimal, dark stage-scape keeps congruency with their sound, and the minimal spectacle allows for the pair of rib-high, lighted cabinets to be profoundly emphasized as they peer out to the crowd likened as if they are the beady, yellow eyes of Fitzgerald’s Dr. T.J. Eckleburg. For a coda, In and Out of Youth and Lightness is raw, aberrant, and great company for the young widows out there.

Zach Frimmel