Houston’s Rome Hero Foxes named their sophomore LP 18 Summers, but it more accurately describes the band’s beginnings. Shortly after graduating high school, the quintet was discovered in 2016 by Dance Gavin Dance’s Kurt Travis and released For When You’re Falling Backwards. As far as debuts go, its expanse melded the urgency of post-hardcore with an inward gaze offsetting any chaos. That introspection, bent over swirling guitars and mesmerizing vocal lines, led to reinvention. Instead of baring their teeth through arrangements that spiraled and warped, the band took a self-imposed journey into simpler territory. A pair of twin EPs, I/O and Horoscope, reset Rome Hero Foxes as a group indebted to surf rock and indie pop instead of gnarlier waves, with the latter predicting their shimmering follow-up. Enter the real 18 Summers.
“During this time of writing all of this material, it made me envision all these songs as this sort of time capsule-like void or world where time is slow but life keeps moving faster,” vocalist and rhythm guitarist CJ Burton explains. With that definition in mind, it’s easy to understand the varied warmth and speeds put to tape here. “Seattle Queen,” with Andrew Hagan’s percolating keyboards leading the way, places love’s angled complexities behind a slice of bubblegum pop. “Chest Piece” splits its pathway between R&B schmaltz and vaulted pop-punk. Other fare, like the Black Mirror nod “San Junipero,” heighten interpersonal highs to infectious, but experimental highs. It’s the only track that reminds listeners of the band’s darker roots, with flecks of mathy guitar flanking verses. This album is as concerned with love as it is with its absence in the face of growing older and growing apart.
18 Summers enters like a dream — abrupt and disorienting — before adjusting to this new state with enthusiasm. This eternal sunshine captures a world where time is relative: sit back, relax, and dive in. Because here, love reigns supreme.
– Written by James Cassar
TRACK BY TRACK
Lost In A Room – I wrote this song about a time where I was starting to experience emotional abuse and manipulation in a long distance relationship I had been in a few years ago. This song represents the feeling of being lost in your own head over not being enough for someone or not being able to defuse a situation you have no control over.
Break Your Own Bones – The story of acceptance and moving on from someone who went out of there way to hurt you and only hurt themselves in the process. This time around, having your heart broken is learned to have been for the best after all when the person who broke it reveals their true colors.
Chest Piece – Probably one of the most explicit tracks off the record, this song illustrates an experience I had when I was cheated on and left for the person I was cheated with. The song is structured to start off slow, creating a world of disbelief and betrayal until the ball finally drops and becomes a fit of anger and resentment for what has been done to you by someone you once loved.
18 Summers – A brief summary of all that I had experienced in my adolescence that made life seem to be on repeat. Through constant love, loss, and renewal, the summers were only there briefly until the next one came along and reset everything all over again, making life feel infinite in its endless ups and downs.
Be Your Side – A song that reflects on past relationships we find ourselves wanting to go back to when we’re still on the bitter path of finding ourselves first. And while we wishfully believe that we can fight our way back into when things were different, we know that it could never be the same again because you don’t want to be someone else’s last resort or their “side.”
Don’t Call My Name – This song comes from a vulnerable mindset when you start to completely resent the person who broke your heart. Channeling our sorrows into an angry message for these people to leave and never so much as mention our names.
San Junipero – This song was actually inspired by the storyline of an episode of Netflix’s Black Mirror. San Junipero is a virtual world made for terminally ill patients, providing them the chance/choice to revisit their youth or live on permanently unless they decide to leave.
Don’t Close The Door – This track was one of the oldest written on the album. I wrote this in 2013 for a solo side project I had at the time when our music was too different of a song for this one to be coherent with any of the material we were writing at the time. Its message relays back to the inclusion of past mistakes and incidents we experience over and over again through different people. It tells a hopeless tale of not wanting to end up alone, wanting to do anything not to be forgotten or locked outside of the love we feel we deserve.
Seattle Queen – I wrote this about the same long distance relationship I was in and how distance really started to become a weapon that was used to complicate an already complicated situation like fights and disagreements. It talks about how whatever I did to aid the problem was no use because there is only so much I could say to this person through messages or phone calls but never in person. The ending delivering a hopeless cry for understanding that you loved them as much as you could but it wasn’t enough to keep things from falling apart.
Good For You – Definitely the most diverse and stand out track, Good For You is a song that plays around self doubt and that all these terrible things that people have done to us is because we just aren’t good enough for them. It ties up the notion that the lesson has been learned but ignored, cycling us into this constant need to be someone else to keep the people we love around and interested.
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Top photo by Natasha Bermudez
