Album Review: Tiny Moving Parts - 'This Couch Is Long And Full Of Friendship'

Tiny Moving Parts are emo’s best-kept secret. Chances are, unless you’re heavily invested in mathy emo, or prone to browsing Bandcamp with a keen eye for bands that sound a bit like La Dispute, you won’t have come across them. Proving that great bands can sometimes fly well under the radar, TMP’s most recent offering, This Couch Is Long And Full Of Friendship is a wonderfully exhausting emotional tidal wave abound with musical eccentricities that make the band’s sophomore LP much more than just a mouthful to say.

Tiny Moving Parts have a unique approach to music making. ‘Dakota’ and ‘Along the Lakeside’ are haphazard, erratic and wonderfully temperamental. The lack of song structure or any kind trend or repetition only lends to the endearing way that Tiny Moving Parts empty their emotional musings into their music without checking themselves. In ‘’Clouds Above My Head’ and ‘Grayscale’ the vocalist seems to find a calculated balance between spoken word and screams, an effect whether deliberate or not, that works magnificently with the melodic, breezy instrumental design.

Despite the changeable, intermittent nature of the album, it is quietly spoken and controlled the most part. It's a wintery, slightly misshapen patchwork of twinkly guitar chords that stand out in ‘Amateur Night’ and ‘Dakota’, where the vocals and pulsing percussions just hold of from being overly heavy. This is an effort that seems to let up somewhat in ‘Grayscale’ and more so ‘Vacation Bible School’ where the vocalist lends his despairing shriek to odd lyrics like, "I hope when I fall asleep the pillow eats my teeth" and "this passion is tough to compare with the courage of a polar bear.’"

Each song here is painful and raw, with the final track ‘John P’ being one of the most affecting on an album that is so honest and open that you almost have to look away, to remove your ear buds for a bit until you’re ready to take on the complete anguish of it again. Tiny Moving Parts have reached the crossroad between the angsty emo of bands like Joyce Manor and Basement and more thematically substantial post hardcore bands like Defeater and La Dispute. For fans of both genres, discovering Tiny Moving Parts is somewhat like Christmas come early.

1. Dakota 

2. Along the Lakeside 

3. Grayscale 

4. Vacation Bible School 

5. Clouds Above My Head 

6. I 

7. Waterbed 

8. Amateur Night 

9. II

10. John P.