This Town Needs Guns is a band from
Oxford, England. Their name (a joke on the town's low crime rate) is nowadays stylized TTNG. The band has been through a lot of turmoil in their 12 year history, going through multiple members and vocalists. This album is the last to feature Stuart Smith on vocals (lead vocal duties are now handled by Henry Tremain). The one constant in the band is also its centerpiece, lead guitarist Tim Collis. His virtuoso playing is what drives the band. Complex riffs, finger plucked adeptly, are the real star. I've seen the band live and I don't know if I ever took my eyes off him. The drummer, Tim Collis's brother, is no slouch in the music department either, and drives the rhythm along quite well. I'm hoping this backdrop will keep the interest of those of you in the club who don't normally enjoy emo style music.
The vocals and lyrics are pretty classic emo fair. There is a definite American Football influence / comparisons to be drawn, which is rather daunting to live up to. TTNG managed this task, while also finding a voice and foothold in the genre.
Hope you guys enjoy this!
Perhaps this is no surprise, but I couldn't enjoy this album a whole lot. I found it to be entirely average - the whole thing felt very same-samey.
ReplyDeleteThe way I look at it, some bands are very natural with their complex progressions and time signatures (Mew, for example), while some, like TTNG, seem to kind of force it at times. No doubt they all are really talented musicians, but I feel like the songwriting is just lacking. The all-out assault of notes got to be a bit too much for me.
The album being 55 minutes doesn't help things, either. Thankfully, there were a couple of songs where they changed things up slightly, which was much needed for me to be okay with listening to the album front to back - Elk was one of them, Zebra another. I still found that the arrangements didn't really gel with what I typically like, but at least it changed things up. Oh, and the last song was, in my opinion, the weakest on the album, which is a bummer.
You know what this town really needs? Diversity.
To me, emo has always seemed like more of concept that spans wider than just a genre of music. I've never really identified with it, which is why I don't think I've ever considered listening to any emo music. It is for this reason that I don't think I enjoyed this album very much. It was kind of like a lone puzzle piece that struggled to find any attachment to my interests, musical or otherwise.
ReplyDeleteWhile I had a general apathy for Animals, I was certainly able to identify things that might have made it appealing for others. The guitar playing reminded me of some of the math rock and more melodic post-rock artists I've listened to, which I'm now beginning to realize probably took notes from bands like this.
I didn't really pay that much attention to the lyrics, but from what I did pick out, they really had nothing to do with the animals the songs were titled after.
Though I'm sure everyone expects me to love this album just because it's "emo", this was actually a struggle for me to get through. Despite popular opinion I don't love emo music. Most of the music I like that can fall into the category of "emo" I love because of the unique vocals, thoughtful lyrics, or interesting instrumentation.
ReplyDeleteWhile the instrumentation may have been skillful here, I didn't find it interesting at all. The math rock noodling got very irritating very quickly to me and by the end of that first six song stretch I was ready to give up on this album entirely. Thankfully the pace finally changed and the album redeemed itself a bit from "Elk" to "Chincilla". As for the singer's voice...I'm sorry I hated it. It sounds exactly like a hundred other voices out there, most of which remind me of middle school and not in a good way.
Maybe if they had cut the length of this album in half I could've stomached it, but the in-your-face-noodling combined with the guy's voice had me kind of turned off from the start. This is definitely not a band I will be returning to.
I've never really enjoyed math rock or math rock influenced emo bands like a lot of midwestern emo bands are. So I struggled to get through this album because to be blunt, throughout most the album I was mainly looking forward to the album ending so I could turn it off. That said, none of that is to the fault of the album. It's just not my type of music.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't mean I hated everything though. For one thing I thought the album was produced phenomenally. Everything sounded so crisp and clear. The strange time signatures were also interestingly done. Overall though, this album just didn't click with me. But I'm still glad you chose it because me (especially midwestern emo) is a genre I really don't know much about so with this I was able to broaden my knowledge a bit. In the end though, I don't think this kind of music is for me.
I'm not really sure what to say about this album at this point, so I'm just going to run through my thoughts somewhat chronologically as I listened to this album.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was listening to Pig for the very first time I was immediately struck by how proficient the guitar and drum work sounded. It's a bit paradoxical, but the instrumentation demonstrated a blazing busyness in the most restrained way possible. However, I also quickly realized that the style of the music itself was not something I was into.
As I listened some more, I felt that the album was very homogeneous overall. I struggled to distinguish one track from one another, much less pick a standout favorite. There's nothing on this album that really lets loose or soars in any way. The lack of peaks or honestly even hooks made it difficult to get attached.
However, upon listening to this album one more time for this comment, I started to get it. Animals is strangely comforting, and not in the "I could fall asleep to this" kind of way. It doesn't really push your buttons and opts more for just being there with you. This makes the album a bit forgettable for sure, but I can appreciate it as someone who doesn't actively seek out emo.
Sorry for my late response! I surprisingly didn't dislike this as much as some may have thought I would. The guitar work is really great but at times got pretty repetitive (that seems to be an issue with math rock in general and probably not just this band in particular). The overall production is great and the band has a good ear for knowing what sounds work well together.
ReplyDeleteThe major downfall for me was the lack of variety across the tracks. Nothing unique was really brought to the table for me and it made it hard to feel like this album is more than just average. There are some math rock bands out there that I really enjoy (toe, Don Caballero) so I think I started comparing this album to their sounds, which imo are way more diverse and interesting.
Overall though, I appreciated being introduced to this group. Didn't really get the concept of the animal thing tbh lol.