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Each spring, when the trees start budding and the flowers start blooming, I always get that spring fever feeling. Even though I’m a grown-up—and I should show a grown-up kind of restraint—I still find that it’s excruciating to stay inside and work all day when it’s so warm and sunny and flowery outside. All I want is to go outside and run around the yard. I want to get in the car and drive around with the windows down and the volume up. And I want to sing at the top of my lungs.
And for that reason, this is the perfect time of year for Young Knives to release their sophomore album, Superabundance—because it’s a fun and frantic album. It’s fast-paced and playful, and it’s sometimes even a bit silly. And that makes it a great spring fever album.
It all starts with “Fit 4 U,” a catchy, Brit-poppy tune if there ever was one. Track after track, the album is filled with poppy, bouncy, sing-along-y, high-energy kinds of songs. And even when the lyrics are pretty grim (as in “Turn Tail”: “We’re all slaves on this ship / This ship’s sinking / We will not reach the shore”), you can’t help but sing and dance along. Perhaps that’s because so many of the songs are infectiously repetitive. By that, I mean that they’re repetitive enough to make them impossibly catchy—but, fortunately, not so repetitive that it’s excessive and tedious (Yeah, I’m talking to you, Moby.).
Superabundance has a somewhat familiar sound—one that’s very…today. So if you’re into the current alternative scene (those bands whose names start with “The”—the ranks of which once included Young Knives, who just recently dropped their “The”), you’ll appreciate the sound. At the same time, though, it’s also a bit yesterday—with the occasional hint of influence by several of the lads’ countrymen. You see, some people spend their free time analyzing the flavor undertones in a glass of wine, but I like to analyze the undertones in songs. And I’m pretty sure that, amid the guitar riffs and vocal harmonies on Superabundance, I picked up a little bit of New Order, as well as some of the Beatles, and maybe even a little bit of Queen. Yet it all seamlessly fuses with the band’s high-energy, new-alternative style.
At the end of the album, however, the guys slow things down a bit for their final three songs. The sound is more theatrical—and even a bit darker—than the rest of the album. And while I’m all for bands experimenting with their sound, this one just doesn’t work for them. In fact, it just brings the album to a rather dreary end.
The rest of the album, however, is whole lot of playful, high-energy fun. So when you take to the road this spring with your windows down and the volume up, you might want to have a copy of Superabundance within reach.
