Your American Math
Motors Into The Drink
Kill the Bunny
Athens, GA-based five-piece Your American Math feature two former members of the band that eventually evolved into Azure Ray, and somehow, in the midst of their post-rock inspired sound, it shows. Motors Into The Drink is a far more genre-bending affair than the initial Chicagoan sound might trick you into believing. Your American Math delve into Radiohead tunefulness as much as they do the Slint workouts. Intermittent traces of Omaha folk are juxtaposed with the jazzy weirdness of Karate hiding beneath the gently swaying melody of tracks like “A Song For Paul Jonas.” Also, the sympho-rock pomp of Queen can be found in the appropriately titled instrumental “Eldoradomega.”
Although Your American Math don’t really sound anything like them, they share some kinship with both Six By Seven and ?Trail of Dead in the way they continually explore their songs from diametrically opposed angles at all times, always trying to bring something new to what’s already there, and very often succeeding in doing so. Long, expansive songs betray humble origins, ending up in places never suggested at the outset. On a track like the stunning, exhausting “Annual Headache Drive,” the band’s careful craftsmanship truly pays off.
Such an ambitious and far-reaching album will rarely be without its faults, and one can argue that Your American Math (at times) stretch far beyond the reach of their actual talents. But it’s this risk-taking that makes Motors Into The Drink such a rewarding and enjoyable album. It sometimes strives for more than it can ever hope to achieve, but it’s always interesting, regularly intriguing and remarkably often successful in brushing those unreachable goals it sets for itself.
Kill the Bunny: http://www.killthebunny.com/