Review Summary: Indian Summer proves its superiority in "Science 1994."
The emo music scene often reminds me of my post-childhood, young adult nostalgia phase. Bands like I Hate Myself, Saetia, and especially Indian Summer cause the realization of emotion in all places, the loss of innocence, and the aggression building up inside. Often anxieties would cause people to lose control, and hurt themselves and others. Others turned to drugs or alcohol. Some could not take it anymore, and took their own lives. Few are still in emotional indecision, and cannot handle modern society. Few, however, wallow in the lyrical agony of Indian Summer.
Indian Summer is a California-based emo band whose aggression was uncomparable, even to the likes of their influences. Screaming cathartically in anger at the feelings that the words in their songs cause. Live performances became emotional purges in which audience members would sometimes cry in passion. Songs on 'Science 1994' were good examples of this rage, often causing songs to become deep drugged phases. These emotions are usually caused by the singer's deep, eerie voice to convey the most feelings in the listener. I personally thought that without such a singer, this band would not be so inducive of such emotions.
Most emotional tracks include "I Think Your Train is Leaving", "Aren't You an Angel?", "Woolworm", and "Sugar Pill", the latter of which is so truly raw in energy that one may cry in passion while listening.
"Woolworm", sometimes called "Angry Son" takes an even more experimental approach; rather than singing in rhythm to deep, under-produced guitars to produce feeling, said track is spoken word, and tells the story of a son who murdered his father to inherit the land he owns, and he feels no sadness. Later in this 7:27 track, he realizes his plight and promptly kills himself. This track is a very good example of forced emotion. "A look to heaven, sighing tears of angel's and a night sky, this is the moment."
Other songs like "Orchard" and "Reflections on Milkweed" show the bands rather boring and dry side amongst the chaotic, foggy emotion of the other tracks. Said songs do not cause emotional attachment, and honestly, are underdeveloped and lazily written, degrading the quality of this album severely and making it more difficult to take this band seriously.
Though the tracks on this album are high in quality, they were obviously produced very poorly; underdeveloped, "Science 1994" just ends up sounding like another punk record, diverse in itself, but sonically generic. 3.5/5