Brave Young Lion - same old game

Brave Young Lion

Same Old Game
self-released; 2013

3.9 out of 5

By Sean Dennison

This is slick, technically impressive rock from the Texas quartet Brave Young Lion. I want to say it's math rock, but I hate using that term, though there's enough going on – ridiculous chord changes on the part of the guitarist and pretty complicated drumming from the drummer – to make this sound mathy. I also want to call it emo but it goes too hard and not melodramatically enough for that. Then I want to throw out comparisons to Animal Collective and Vampire Weekend but then I'm like, "Do they REALLY sound like that?"

Same Old Game is a grab bag of rock sub genres that BYL (they already have the abbreviation of a recognized rock group), with the occasional hiccups, pull off masterfully. The surfy-emo of "Ebbs and Flows" does just that with searing guitar licks and foamy deliver of Rico Turrubiarte. But there's also the sweaty punch of 80s arena rock in "Same Old Game." The closer "Nomadic Love" has a distinctly garage rock feel, both in sound and lyrical matter (the coda goes "perpetuate nomadic love").

The most powerful thing Same Old Game has going on, besides the excellent drumming and the versatility of the guitar players, is how it cannot be easily pigeonholed. The contents within the music won't confuse or anger but accommodate and please. It's tough to skirt the genre lines of rock music without falling into one completely. To do it on five songs and manage to sound unique on every one? That's walking on coals, and Brave Young Lion emerge with cool feet.

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