MP3 Review: Pianos Become The Teeth "Keep You" (Epitaph)

[$7 to Download // https://pianosbecometheteeth.bandcamp.com/album/keep-you]

When I first moved back to Connecticut I naturally wanted to know what the music scene was like here and as such one of the biggest bands I found was that one with the long name that I will abbreviate as The World is a Beautiful Place.   I'm not really into their music for as much as I've listened to them and *tried* to get into it, but they do stem off several other bands through labels, splits, whatever.    I somehow found Pianos Become The Teeth that way, some years ago, and I listened to them but obviously wasn't impressed enough to review them.  

Enter 2014 and Epitaph has put out their newest album so my initial reaction is that I have to hear it.   (For the record, if TWIABP put out a full length with Epitaph I might have to listen to it as well)   I seem to recall PBTT as this sort of screamo band, where they have melody in their verses but then get hardcore and screamy in their choruses.   Apparently this is not true, as I'm listening to this and there is minimal screaming and moments of heaviness overall.

As opposed to sounding like a band such as Silverstein, for example, this sounds like Silverstein without the screaming.     It has a certain emo quality to it, sure, but is emo even still a bad word?   Hasn't it been long enough?   Don't think that there aren't times when it will kick in and have screams though because it will but it seems to be more out of the intensity of the music than from the need to be stuck in a genre.

There really aren't bands that sound like this and I'm okay with that because it just makes this that much better.   I have no desire to go back and listen to older songs by PBTT and I am by no means a "fan" of theirs in the sense that I'd go out of my way to see them live or anything, but this is a solid album.

I actually got this from a press person at Epitaph (don't ask) and since I didn't just try to stream from Bandcamp on my own or something, I felt some sort of duty to review it whether or not I liked it.   I was kind of expecting to give it a negative review or just write it off as being bad and not worth reviewing.    The problem was, my first few times through I couldn't find a reason to like this but I also couldn't find a reason not to like it.

After maybe the third or fourth time through, I found myself having pieces of these songs stuck in my head.   It got this point where I wanted to listen to it not because I felt like I owed it a review but because I actually liked it.    This album might have overcome the toughest uphill battle I have ever placed before a band.     The lyrics are just so good that with the music- no matter how you can describe it or compare it- there is just no denying the greatness here.