Youth Really Killed It

The only thing worse than receiving cold emails from a music PR companies is when your mediocre band friends ask you to review their less than inspiring music. It's the worst. Not only do they assume that you owe them a favour for simply being their friend but usually you have to act like it's actually half decent as to not hurt their tender musician feelings. Following my last attempt at a music review, Carlos Montero from the indie band Youth Killed It challenged me to "review and trash our album pls xo", so let this be a lesson to anyone who thinks I'm going to go easy on their tunes just because I know them because unfortunately I'm not that kind of person.

UPDATE: I've actually been asked to take this down by the band as they don't want any industry people to see my scathing remarks. Unfortunately that's not how reviews work. 

Why this London based band has a Google image from another city is beyond reason. As the cliché always warned us, to judge by the cover would be anyone's mistake, yet as every writer and graphic designer will know that this is exactly the point of both titles and album artwork. 'Modern Bollotics' is neither an Anarchy In The UK politically charged resistance as you'd initially assume, in fact there's little to no mention of really anything substantial, nor is it a Modern Life Is Rubbish style brit-rock take on current affairs. Despite confusingly sounding partially pop punk, it is still very much an indie take of a bland and laddish British lifestyle, with visuals that are on par with the sort of mixtapes that desperate underground artists try to peddle you down Camden high street.

On clicking play, you're presented with an immediate full body cringe thanks to a 9-second skit of a young lad trying to mimic a phone call from an overbearing manager but not quite getting it. Surely someone could've asked a parent or guardian for help, perhaps nipping down the local to ask one of of the old boys to lend a hand in exchange for a pint.

Unfortunately the actual music isn't much of a remedy to this bad start and heavily feels more like a ploy for recognition than a showcase of actual passion and talent. Self absorbed repetitions of their own band name are essentially the audio equivalent of watching a male pigeon swelling it's neck to impress (in which case, perhaps this would be a stronger album cover). "Bad decisions when I was just a teenager" and self proclaimed bad looks are seemingly all to blame for their non-existent immediate success, not their lack of effort. This theory becomes vividly obvious if you watch any one of their music videos, which for some reason all comprise of the boys standing around in a single room.

The obvious overriding theme throughout is their general lack of effort. Most worryingly for the ladies, vocalist Jack Murphy mentions wooing a girl with his cheese on toast in Lads In Love whilst perpetuating the 'cool girl' myth by bragging that she likes action movies and watching football. It's literally every girl's nightmare and is only worsened with the following track that his GCSE results spell F.U.D.G.E. Sounds like a real catch.

Although their apathy is consistent, it's most prevalent in the tenth track I Ain't Ready For It, which is essentially the anthem for every middle aged person that assumes millennials are lazy good-for-nothings. They can't deal with growing up, or even washing up, because they're not ready for it. Leaving your mess for someone else to tidy up is a pretty entitled thing to do and makes for dull listening. Perhaps if these disinterested man children tried a little harder to work on the tunes instead of their attitude, they would go a lot further.

At least a little bit of musical variation would be welcomed as the tracks all merge into one non-distinct insignificant puddle. If it wasn't for their tenuous YouTube connections, it's doubtful that they'd have any plays at all.