YouInSeries
Outside We Are Fine (2006)
Brian Shultz
YouInSeries doesn't seem to understand that Circa Survive's Juturna is a great album because it composes great, dense melodies with atmospheric textures, very light prog influences, beautiful guitars and highly impressive vocals leading the charge, because they try to sound exactly like CS and fail to deliver any of these elements. Instead, we're given a desperate wannabe with a lead singer that sounds irritatingly like the Higher's Seth Trotter.
Outside We Are Fine simply sounds like someone left their copy of Juturna outside in the rain for too long. Riffs attempting to build but ultimately follow a destination-less trail? Check. Same producer as the aforementioned (Brian McTernan) giving it a nice, epic soundscape? Check. Vocals pleading lines of hope and compassion, sometimes soaked in practically whiny overcoatings? Check again. The songs are simply lifeless; we're offered glimmers of hope in single moments of "See Not What You Want But Who You Really Are" and the title track with solid choruses, but there's no proper follow-through wrapping up those tracks -- it feels like they're cut off with no full circle completed. Only "Often Too Much Thomas Kincade" finishes with somewhat of a climax, a rarity here.
Additionally, Kyle Lobeck's vocals just undercut their efforts. I could go for anything but another band like the Higher, including YouInSeries (both bands of which happen to share a birthplace in Las Vegas), but it sort of sounds like he was designed for some similarly generic current-generation-emo outfit instead of the more "experimental" territory we're to believe YouInSeries treads. You can hear him straining to shoot past his youthful limitations on tracks like "Lose Faith in the Truth" and "When and Where a Real World Occurs," but truth be told he sounds awkward and forcing it just a bit too much.
Everything YouInSeries tries to do on Outside We Are Fine has simply been done much, much better, and only 13 months ago. This is simply a cloning experiment gone just too awry.