You could call Ume shoegazer. Or maybe you’d like to call them a power pop outfit. You could talk about punk influences. You could say these things, but you’d be wrong – not because these things don’t apply, but because they don’t get at what Ume is at its core. Ume is a rock band. You remember when you could use those four letters by themselves? When r-o-c-k said it all, and adjectives just screwed it up? It meant crunchy guitars and vocals with an edge. On the Sunflower EP, apparently someone forgot to tell Ume not to make a rock record. I’m glad. I would have had to burn that someone’s house to the ground.
Ume will draw comparisons to Hole and Pretty Girls Make Graves. It’s inevitable, but y’know, screw that. I’m comparing Hole and Pretty Girls Make Graves to Ume because I’d rather listen to Ume – and I like Pretty Girls Make Graves! It pains me that on Sunshower there are only five songs to listen to. “Pendulum” ends and I keep waiting for the next track to kick in. It never does. I want to rap my head around just one more track. Ume, could you please make a full length in the next couple of months? I’d be grateful.
“The Conductor” would make for a great show opener. The chorus is hummable, yet the guitars bite in the opening. Lauren Larson wields her axe without caution, and Ume rides on waves of distortion because of it.
Ume doesn’t sound dated, but in listening to them, there’s a sense of nostalgia. I can’t figure out why. Maybe it’s the same reason that as a teenager Sugar’s File Under: Easy Listening was a revelation. When an album throws off the shackles of bowing to studio tinkering and just wears its guitars on its sleeves, the simplicity makes it timeless. It could have been made in the 80s, 90s, or last week, and it would sound just as good. Sunshower is such a collection.
Article comments