When one's prerogative is to spend half their time chilling out and the other half flying to Jupiter, there is a much-debated question on what to listen to. Souvenir's Young America has brought this dilemma upon themselves and answered it with their first full-length, Souvenir's Young America. The album in question is able to juggle some soft prettiness with a futuristic heaviness that is driven by synthesizer and slow pounding drum beats.
With Souvenir's Young America's demo and 7", there was a sound they were attempting to achieve that, with the full-length, they were able to achieve. Maybe it was a more expensive recording budget (the sound is very big and clean) and a combination of the experience of being in a band together, but everything about the full-length compared to the previous material sounds more professional.
Combining guitar, drums, and keyboard sounding instruments, Souvenir's Young America takes the post-rock sound in a more futuristic direction. The guest appearances by instruments such as cello, banjo, xylophone, and others provides a diverse portfolio of sounds to entice the listener and to prevent Souvenir's Young America from dipping into the mundane. While some parts of the album are softer than others, for the most part, there is a continuous drive towards something. Whether that final destination is a crescendo of science fiction fueled explosions or a hole filled with distorted fallout, Souvenir's Young America will bring you there and along the way you'll be taking mental snapshots of the glowing walls pressing you backwards.
The best part of the album is the first eight minutes of "Twilight of Steam (What the Thunder Said)," which has a genuine beautiful approach of hypnotic sounds. Then when everything starts building up we're left off into the electronic side of the sound that ends up sounding awkward. I understand that Souvenir's Young America is melding two things that don't normally go together, but the problem with doing this, is sometimes it just doesn't work. Around the nine-minute mark in said song I can't help but feel pulled out from my previous trance.
After forty minutes of chasing the T-1000 through time portals, Souvenir's Young America leaves us waiting for what's to come. Whatever direction they choose, if the next release has this dramatic of progression compared to past releases, they will definitely be a band to reckon with. I could see them fitting in the Temporary Residence roster or some other label like that. But, they need to tighten to combinations of electronic and organic in more subtle way at times.
