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THE YOUNGS PLAN – Eveningtalk (Self-released EP)

Posted: June 20th, 2008, by Pascal Ansell

Oxfordshire bunch The Youngs Plan are an indie 5-piece and are, yak yak, rather young – this year sees them contributing a new track to the Truck Fest compilation as well as playing the marvellous weekend. Woopee!

Singer Ash Cooke* provides most of the songwriting, and has an excellent upper-range. ‘Our Getaway Car’ is a tricky but not contrived tune, serving as an example for the whole album; a shrewd balance between technicality and artifice. At times borrowing from At The Drive In and Bloc Party (the beginning of ‘Temper, Temper’ features some ace ‘choppy-guitar’ action of the latter band) but sounding original enough to fly from its immediate inspirations.

Thankfully, ‘Eveningtalk’ is bursting with an unhealthy amount of anxious, neurotic lyrics. It begins with the hyped-up energy of a beginning of an epic night out, twinned with comic-book fantasy: “the streets, this heavy concrete, so I’ll tight-rope walk the telephone wires” and the heavily ironic “tonight let’s migrate to where the bass is pumping”. The latter lyric almost achieves its object in sounding like the more cool, less ill-at-ease half of the digital generation – conveying instead is the pathos of not belonging, not fitting in.

‘Eveningtalk’ embodies the diverse kinds of twilight conversation: the hyper, rambling speeches; maniac splurges; deep, profound discussions and plain (danceable) banter. Twenty minutes in and the EP lolls itself to the end of its night-out: “now I’m tired. Everyone can stay here.”

It seems TYP are a bit of a tricky band to be in considering you’d have to literally crap in a bowl or record child-birth to create something original. Crap indie, i.e. jaunty guitars and brooding ‘situational’ lyrics indie has been done to death. But somehow they slip through this almost ubiquitous net: TYP are genuine enough to pull off the sheer complexity of the music and achieve an intelligent but not unfeeling EP.

Pascal Ansell

http://www.myspace.com/theyoungsplan

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=6hrFZjobmsk[/youtube]

*The reviewer acknowledges the fact that he shares a close (and some would say amorous) acquaintance with each of the five Youngs Plan chaps. The reviewer also acknowledges the fact that no review is ever fully objective – you could say I have a more intimate knowledge of what’s going on with the music. Whatever, TYP are good enough for me to stoop down to the level of ‘my homies’, and bribes aside, TYP are a good band like any other I’d go out of my way to review.



Pascal Ansell

Pascal is a fearsome, hungry giant trapped in the body of a hyperactive boy. On a mission to waste no more than 14 seconds per day, he bounds from activity to activity like a deer being chased by a cheetah. Follow him now, as in ten year's time he'll be a leading voice in something or other. He's also writing down every word you say in a small book so watch out!

http://soundcloud.com/panelak

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