Homesick Future EP - Young Liars

Homesick Future EP

Young Liars

Nettwerk Records.

SCQ Rating: 65%

Anyone with a broadband connection couldn’t possibly refute the fact that music listeners have never been as privy to as much music as we are now. The mere notion of having fifteen or so records on the go within the same month is considered a hobby now, not a completely unmanageable overdose. So it’s with trepidation that we acknowledge how musicians who’ve been raised amid this post-millennial deluge of music might filter their own eclectic influences without sounding like an homage to their iPod shuffle.

Enter: Young Liars, a Vancouver-based quintet that entwines a classic pop approach around a bevy of influences that would be commonplace if they’d picked only a few. Arguably the most pervasive influence afoot over the course of the band’s Homesick Future EP is Hot Chip, whose bubbly dance veneer and literate lyricism carved an undeniable niche in the mid-noughties indie explosion, and it informs Young Liars’ most reliable anchor. Single “Colours” wastes no time establishing that comparison with its cosmic keyboard arpeggios and bouncy verses giving way to the sort of direct chorus one expects to hear on the radio. Given the band’s aping of acts as varied as New Order, The Strokes, Bloc Party, and The Killers, it’s important to note that Young Liars’ scattershot mimicry falls into the trendy, not gimmicky, category. In fact, if you put aside the male vocals in “Newton, Forgive Me”, Young Liars not only sound like each of those bands separately but Florence And the Machine on top of it all.

The record boasts an of-the-moment feel, without sounding particularly compromised or contrived, but how you feel about the accomplished polish on Homesick Future EP will largely depend on your loyalties as a music listener. By amalgamating the euphoric rushes inherent to a handful of established genres, Young Liars risk dating themselves before they’ve even stamped something authentic onto the scene. With so much promise behind this talented bunch, it would be a shame to see Young Liars end up stranded on the fickle pinnacle of 2012.