YOURCODENAMEIS:MILO
Ignoto
Just as ‘emotionally-charged’ music’s star begins to fade, a troupe of warriors appear on the horizon, equipped with the magic elixir for the modern scene. At least that’s what they believe. For the debut album from Yourcodenameis: milo, a Newcastle fivepiece who name-drop The Used and My Chemical Romance, is every bit as generic as their associations would suggest. I think they’re trying to be experimental.
One gets the sneaking suspicion that they’re attempting to emulate early At The Drive In, but all within safe boundaries. There is nothing radical about this album; it sits comfortably on the fence between emo and post-rock. Combining distorted guitars with existentially disorientated lyrics, YCNI:M supposedly peddle music for the ‘thinking teen’ – a teen, that is, whose thoughts are filled with black eyeliner and band hoodies.
Tracks such as ‘2 Stone’, with their fuzzy guitars are indubitably For The (Kerrang) Kids. Apparently YCNI:M rehearse six times a week. Unfortunately, this has done nothing for vocalist Paul Mullen’s voice, which spectacularly fails to fall within a semitone of the required note. Proof that perspiration doesn’t necessarily equal inspiration. Saying that, there is some hope within the album. One just has to look very hard.
‘Yesterday’s Head’, a track of soaring guitars and dissonance, succeeds in evoking a menacing, almost Tool-like atmosphere. Undoubtedly the stand-out track of the album, it combines the ethereal with the gritty, giving the impression that maybe, if YCNI:M were tempted to stray beyond the paradoxical bounds of safe-experimentalism, we would see them emerging from the base metallic leanings of their tracks to create a hint of gold.
28th Apr 2005