American Football did it again (7 years later): here’s LP4

The number 3 is often regarded as the perfect one — something which simply will not get a follow-up, especially from the number 4, seen as indeed unlucky and mischievous across some European subcultures or even in pop culture characters, such as Guido Mista from the iconic anime “JoJo’s bizarre adventures Part 5: Golden wind”, but once again music proves wrong, whereas in more anarchic times someone said that…

rules are meant to be broken.

The emo poker standing in pose (Via Pinterest)

American Football, a milestone to the Midwest Emo genre since the end of last century return on May 1st with their 4th studio album, their self-titled(LP4). National festivity for Italians like me since it is the “Festa dei lavoratori” which translates in “workers’ day”, and the deal is that basically nobody works on that day (but we’re talking about Italy, nothing is guaranteed).

Speaking about guaranteed, there were some unwritten rules given by the band that were not broken with this record, and that is having that palpable passion in order to make the record, no cash grabs, no retirement nostalgic music, no pretentious teenage riot at 50 years old, indeed proving a deep sonic evolution which undeniably leads to a never-boring mix between new sounds and good ol’ Math Rock influenced metrics, as the formation brings ulterior experimentation in their new songs, pairing everything we knew from the second LP and letting us feel more with ambient-driven guitars and enhanced vocal technique by Mike Kinsella, shaking hands with the new dreamy wave of the blending between Emo and Shoegaze, the so-called “Zoomergaze”. Their math midwest outfit has been through a rough evolution across the years, often leaning towards Skramz, a wave leaded today by the likes of the young and technical “Train Breaks Down” or even by the DIY raw-sounding “Vs Self”. It is with this comeback that they enrich the scene with their experience contribution, gifting us listeners a revisited shape of what we were used to.

The natural aging of the band never leads to them feeling out of place in the record as the over-arching theme here is supported by the glueing voice of Kinsella and his coherent lyrics, letting the songs be able to stand across each other and handle their own business with the help of some key vocal featurings, as stated in the interview made for Alternative Press:

“The lyrics that come out are more than ever influenced by the songs. I would say that literally every part of every song, we can get into the minutiae of, OK, I want this reverb pedal to sound like this Cure song, even though the drum part is a total math-rock song…There’s a tipping point where if we have 50 demos or ideas in a folder, like, “OK, these three live in this world, and they’re all the same world.”… Then hopefully at the end, you get 9 or 10 different worlds that all are cohesive because they all have my distinctively limited vocal range on top of them”

(Kinsella on the lyrical and compositional evolution of the band)

the famous house revisited in a larger way (Via Reddit)

“I feel like, on this album, there’s a couple instances where it’s a little devil and angel on my shoulder…It’s like in Shakespearean theater. There are these characters that represent the community.”

(Kinsella about the featured vocalists’ purpose)

This all results in excellent and useful harmonic compensations between the artists, succeeding in portraying these emotions with consciousness, through an almost ancient Grecian-like exchange of emotions, humor and life tragedy.