Dryvetyme Onlyne

Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate)
What It Takes To Move Forward
Count Your Lucky Stars; 2009

One of my more frequent musical objects of affection over the course of 2009 has been the quiet, steady resurgence of second-wave emo. I came of musical age in the mid-‘90s, listening to Braid, Dear Ephesus, and Pedro The Lion – acts with sad sounds that ran counter to the bitter, angry sounds of grunge and were passionate tangents off the jangly indie rock of acts like Pavement. I needed the intense emotional cocktails that such bands offered my ears, and it certainly helped that they were creating music that challenged an adolescent palette that had only tasted from the wells of ‘80s pop country and Christian pop-rock. The Midwestern United States remains a hotbed and hive of keen emo acumen, since it seems that never-ending stretches of cornfields are a breeding ground for intelligent, expressive rock tunes.

One of the leaders of this resurgence has been Count Your Lucky Stars Records, led by Keith and Cathy Latinen. It seems that this couple not only releases great records (like Summer Months by Joie de Vivre), but also they use their spare time to create good music of their own in the band Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate). When I first came across this outfit, I was digging the sounds of the Year Of The Rabbit 7”, and remarked that there were some strong pop smarts on display. A year later, What It Takes To Move Forward comes out, seeking first to marry indie-fied emo with post-rock and then taking both genres to their most excessive lengths.

The band eagerly employs the sort of delicate, multi-faceted layering used by Appleseed Cast, complete with an ambience that’s equal parts sensitive and rocking. This is coupled with rich ethereal soundscapes reminiscent of Explosions In The Sky, as well as some pop subtexts (mostly when Keith finally gets around to singing) and an art-school aesthetic that is actively trying to push forward and upward.

Yet, despite such heady elements in play, there is something rather commonplace with this record. For starters, most tracks serve as huge, anthemic mountaintop experiences – there is no valley too low that the music can’t scale any necessary height to see the sky once more. Furthermore, the ponderous, interminable song lengths and complex arrangements make this a tough project to crack into and really enjoy.

Overly familiar musical ideas, themes, and motifs criss-cross the whole of What It Takes To Move Forward. The songs feature large, ringing, plucked open guitar riffs that lead into crunchy power chords; the vocals, while impressive in terms of range, are of the common quiet-to-yelp-in-an-instant variety; and even though the songs eschew the typical verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus format, there’s still a big, epic climax to be reached each time. To put it another way, my favorite tracks on the record – “Keep What You Have Built Up Here,” “It Happened Because You Left,” and “It’s A Plague And You’re Invited” – are also examples of the worst sort of musical overkill.

What Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate) does well is craft earnest, enthusiastic Midwestern emo that’s stripped of hipster pretense and effectively channels its preferred source material. Where things start falling apart is that, even though it’s employing heaps of ambition, the band doesn’t quite know how to move those sounds into the present and future, much less know when to excise some clumsy, cumbersome dross from its songs. I’m of the belief that an outside producer might be a key addition for future releases, as crazily creative (and busy!) people like the Latimers often need someone to help them sift through all of the excellent ideas that are floating around inside their heads.