Just as things started to get really good, “Buddy Holly” came on the radio. I paused to turn it up, killing the moment and any chance of advancing my quest any further. After dropping my date off, I went to Wal-Mart, purchased The Blue Album and that, as they say, was that.
The experience filled me with a joyously dark sense of whimsical emo-loathing, which I’ve rarely felt again in an album — until Tulsa upstarts Young Lyons’ outstanding debut EP, Crash Course.
All those wonderful feelings of teenage alt-pop/ennui-quirk are once again present here, like the shredding “whoa-oh-ohs” of opening cut “My Own Town,” which transcend nostalgia and had me head-bobbing in time. “Kill” anxiously speeds up the beat, while “Away Tonight” and “I Give Up” are a Pinkerton-style emotional antidote.
But it’s the final track, “Girlfriend’s Got Me Down,” in which Young Lyons truly come into their own, portraying perfectly the utter desperation of being lost and adrift in a relationship you don’t want to be in. It’s the type of song I really could have used in high school; it would’ve made things so much easier. —Louis Fowler
