Young Galaxy - Young Galaxy

Reviewed by Garrett

3.5 out of 5 Faces (Ratings)

Release Date: April 4, 2007

Label: Arts & Crafts

You've heard Young Galaxy before.  Oh, you may not have actually heard this particular album, but you've heard the music.  The entire thing is vaguely reminiscent of some other band you once heard, and you'll spend most of the album thinking to yourself, "Now where have I heard this song before?"  So it's not like there's any sort of new hotness going on here.  It's not like this is a newly released album either.  Still, despite the fact that this record is decidedly NOT new (both in the sense of timeliness and freshness), I'm going to swan dive into a review of it anyway.  

Young Galaxy have more influences than you do.  Count 'em up: U2, Coldplay, Interpol, Arcade Fire, Stars (fitting since one of the band members is a former touring guitarist), Flaming Lips, Snow Patrol - the list goes on.  Making the U2 brand of music carries a degree of difficulty of 6.9 - it isn't particularly difficult from a technical standpoint (note to self: hire Daniel Lanois), but it can be hard to make it work because there are a lot of wannabes out there producing albums that all sound just like yours.  And to some extent, this album DOES sound the same as the rest of them.  If I played this for you and told you it was the new Snow Patrol, well, you'd have no reason to doubt me.

Maybe that's the reason this album works as a whole, though, despite the fact that the individual moving parts aren't particularly shiny and new.  The sound is consistent if unobtrusive, like the seven-year-old Honda Civic with the hail damage that still gets you to work and back every day.  The album consistently gives you 4 minute long synthed-out power haze pop.  Most of the songs are good if not great; "Swing Your Heartache", "Wailing Wall" and "No Matter How Hard You Try", among others, make a valient attempt to hit you in the mouth, but just can't seem to draw blood.  Then there's "Embers", a stinker that's as out of place here as flatware in mezo-America.  Still, I suppose there's nothing wrong with making consistently competent music, but there's nothing particularly grand about it either.  Witness "Outside the City" and "Lazy Religion" - they won't offend you, they're catchy enough, but at the end of the day this isn't Beethoven we're talking about.  And while the song "The Alchemy Between Us" isn't quite the new alchemy (eye candy to hand shandy), there's still enough philosopher's stone here to think that maybe - someday - Young Galaxy can turn what they've got now into something golden.