Signals Midwest
At This Age
(Tiny Engines)
What has always awed listeners with Signals Midwest is their larger than life hooks, embedding more than just vocal lines, guitar lines or harmonies into a song. Instead, they find ways to make everything assemble together and ring unanimously. At This Age finds the veterans of the modern emo/punk scene still kicking with a pulse, albeit it one that is energetic even while succumbing to the realization of time.
“I should have been a painter, I should have found a way to live a little better,” Max Stern cries out on “Should Have Been A Painter.” That tone sets through with the record and with a lot of the genre’s releases as of late. It’s become more of a narrative of questioning everything it is that one is doing to continue this life. It’s on the new PUP record, Into It. Over It. release (side note, Evan Weiss produced this record) and many other of the bands thriving around as of late. There’s the need to evolve but with that, what comes with that? Does evolution necessarily have to involve ‘growing up’ and ditching the love and passion found within the years of music? With each record just mentioned, the narrative becomes the story of triumph, and then there’s the rock solid record to prove it.
Signals Midwest decided to push past all the uncertainty with At This Age, crafting a raw release a half hour long. The guitars across the record are distorted — maybe more of a light crunch — and form the solid framework of edge the band was looking for. At times the band can drop off completely into a spacey twirl, like the gorgeous build of “Alchemy Hour.” It’s moments like this where it shows the prowess of songwriting of eight year veterans. Couple these moments with explosive drum work and each song has massive appeal, helped further by Stern’s rough vocal deliveries, finding catchy anthems to fly with.
Then there are the songs where all of Stern’s emotions crumble in the lyrics, like the hefty closer “Song For Ana.” It finds Stern on the edge, testing the scale of the breaking point, guided along by drums that hit hard enough to collapse the mountain we are all trying to climb. As the song reaches it’s climax the guitars break through the walls of emotion with their own orchestrated motifs, echoing behind Stern’s fall. It’s a song that shows Signals Midwest in the light that should always be shined upon them, not from behind the door but illuminating an entire house.
There’s one song that seems to not cackle with energy, “Who I Was Before We Met.” It’s acoustic, intimate and a personal reflection from Stern. It’s also a song that calls back the refrain of “West Side Summer,” which in itself is one of the catchiest songs across the record. Details like these help tie the records ends together, wrapping it in a neat bow on top of a perfect gift, which At This Age is.
