The crippling thing about emo is that, while it’s supposed to be honest young emotion, it feels so calculated & identical (not to mention simple), and the only honest feelings seem to be when the artists reveal their ego. That’s why those in the genre who’ve turn towards the orchestral have been a welcome relief: obviously a more complicated & accomplished sound, it also is better at laying out emotions. Compare Fall Out Boy still whining about the girl who left them to Jack’s Mannequin (QRO album review), and singer Andrew McMahon opening up about surviving cancer. Or take Canada’s We Are The City, an actual struggling, DIY emo band of young composers.
The three boys from Kelowna, British Columbia worked odd jobs while still in high school to pay for studio time, but even that wasn’t enough (where’s Canada’s indie-state support Factor Program when you really need it?…), so they launched a donation drive – instead of tote bags, they made some hilarious thank you videos (link), including extreme vocal lessons & the invention of a shrinking machine (used by two of them on the third). And it paid off, as they were able to pull together enough loonies to record & put out In A Quiet World (oh, those nice Canadians…).
Now, We Are The City are still emo, most notably in singer/keyboardist Cayne McKenzie’s emo-heart high vocals, and that can take away from the underpinnings of orchestral grandeur on pieces like "Time, Wasted" and "You’re a Good Man". In fact, whenever Quiet World gets away from the orchestral, it suffers: "Astronomers" has an unneeded distortion breakdown, while "Peso Loving Squid"s calypso-croon stop/start combines the worst of those. Calypso also mars the piano-bounce of "There Are Very Tiny Beasts In the Ground", but at least is then relieved by an indie breakdown. The following "There Are Very, Very Big Lights In the Sky" mixes staccato and carrying, but the flow between the two could use some work.
But even then, one can see the promise behind the mistakes, and there are indeed moments when the band takes emo-orchestral to new heights. Most notable is "Feel Is a Word", thanks to its pause into reverbing wash, as well as the ‘missing childhood’ that actually has real emotional power in "April". We Are The City still need some work (and probably still need some money…), but this is where emo should be going.
