I Was the Red Wine of 1955

I Was Death, I Was a Young Man (2008)

lvOutlaw13

Upon hearing this band's self-titled demo, I soon had high expectations of what they would come to be. I loved the sounds they were putting together, to make something new and fresh. I myself have always been a big fan of screamo music, such as Saetia. But this band took elements from screamo and added it with progressive rock, blues, noise rock and more. It was almost an epiphany, I might say.

But I had never dreamed I would hear such a wonderful EP come from the band. I Was Death, I Was a Young Man is weird, but in a good way. The vocals are at some points just creepy, coming from lead vocalist Hunter Mann, who I might add is still in high school, which surprises me. But I might have to mention that there are plenty of varied vocals on this EP. Every minute of each song is filled with tons of dual vocals coming from Hunter and guitarist D.J. Richardson. Each song is filled with emotion like no other, coming straight from the emo/screamo genre. And other parts remind me of the Blood Brothers, the Mars Volta, the Fall of Troy, and some of the guitar riffs are similar to that of As Cities Burn or Circa Survive. There is a lot packed into this EP, definitely.

Did I mention every song starts with the letter 'W'? I suppose that was an inside joke that started near the beginning of the band, considering the demo tracks were also named after 'W's.

The band also caught me with their jazz and blues inserts. The progressive side of this band shines through, and the blues side, while it's a little faint, is there. They also experiment with metalcore breakdowns, such as their song "Who What When… What?" which starts and ends with a chugga breakdown. They refer to that song as the "song that sounds like everyone else," though I would have to say that it doesn't. At the end of "We Were Young Men" (their theme song, practically), they have a breakdown similar to that of Underoath, which I normally wouldn't care for too much, but their style is so…unique, that I can't help but love it.

I'm very excited to see what else comes from this band. If this was only their first attempt at good music, well… Who knows what else they could accomplish over the next couple of years. The band recently announced they would be experimenting with math-rock and techno in their next release. I'm highly anticipating it.