Album Review: Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate) - 'You Will Eventually Be Forgotten'

It seems like if there ever was a year of the emo, 2014 must be it.

If the fact that American Football announced a few reunion shows doesn’t make you believe this, you should only to need to look at the sheer influx of bands that are all simultaneously pulling heart and guitar strings in such a fine fashion to believe it.

There has been a colossal amount of new wave emo/indie bands that are all releasing brilliantly crafted and honest albums. You Blew It!, The Hotelier, Foxing, Modern Baseball, just to name but a few. With only a few months left of the year, we can safely add another band to this list however. Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate), or Empire! Empire! as we’ll call them for convenience's sake here, are a band that show a vast amount of promise and even bigger amount of power. The beautifully conformed full length, ‘You Will Eventually Be Forgotten’ is a good forty minutes of minor keys, guitar melodies and feels that will have you hooked, coming back for more each listen.

Opening the album in the most “emo” of fashions, ‘Ribbon’ with its sole use of guitars and vocals, sets the stage for the entire album to shine. ‘Foxfire’ has a huge indie vibe that shines in its musical soundscapes of which have exceptional depth; whereas ‘We Are People Here. We Are Not Numbers’ falls more onto the fence of things, sounding like something Modern Baseball would pull out of their sleeve.
The record does feature a wide variety of the aforementioned sound styles yet it never seems to be uncertain of where it wants to be. ‘You Will Eventually Be Forgotten’ always stands firm in whatever Empire! Empire! have chosen for it. Whether gently soothing you with a bare bones approach or catching your attention with catchy riffs and hooks , it’s always out to impress.

Yet the one song we have to talk about is ‘The Promise That Life Can Go on No Matter How Bad Our Losses’. Holy. Shit. If you do not cry during this song, then you have no emotions.The song suits as the perfect closer to an otherwise brilliant album. It features an insanely warm and beautiful guitar line that will just about make you buckle in the knees by itself. Yet as soon as the vocals come in and deliver the heartbreaking tale of spending New Years away from the person you love, it will instantly become a favourite. Building up to a fine and big finish, it sends the album off with exactly what you’d expect from an emo album; passion and heart-on-sleeve honesty.

From beginning to end, ‘You Will Eventually Be Forgotten’ is as captivating as it is well-written. Empire! Empire! have crafted a record that serves as a reminder that emo does in fact mean emotional. Not in the sense of drama or annoyance, but in the sense that there is no holds barred when it comes to music. They don’t just wear their hearts on their sleeve, they pin them straight to their chests like a badge; and one they should be damned proud of.

1. Ribbon

2. I Was Somewhere Cold, Dark... and Lonely

3. We Are People Here. We Are Not Numbers

4. A Keepsake

5. You Have to Be So Much Better than You Ever Thought

6. Stay Divided

7. Foxfire

8. Things Not Worth Fixing

9. If It's Bad News, It Can Wait

10. It's So Much Darker When a Light Goes Out than It Would Have Been If It Had Never Shone

11. The Promise That Life Can Go on No Matter How Bad Our Losses