I’m So Jazzed Up With Pictures of Vernon
Pictures of Vernon here are not trying to impress, they just want to express.
Here is another band that arrests my attention, Pictures of Vernon. Hailing from Asheville, North Carolina, the three-piece emo punk just released new self-titled EP via Counter Intuitive Records.
The band are founded by Anderson Ragan (guitar/vocal), Daniel Gorham (drum/vocal), Matt Brotherton (bass/vocals). After releasing demo in 2014, the band recorded EP The Days Are Just Packed, mastered by Ian Farmer of Modern Baseball.
To be honest, Pictures of Vernon really capture the emotion that strikes me these days. “I learned how to love from a family who didn’t know how to forget//I learned how to live as a person who only held on to regret,” sings the band in the opening track ‘Mr. Alwayright’.
I always have issues with family. In fact, I hate family where I grew up when I realized my dad is a piece of shit. My mom and brothers are not the piece of shit though. They are good. But it can’t help much to save me from my own regret. I have a complete nuclear family, but it’s all broken picture from the way I see it. ‘Mr. Alwaysright’ is really a song that I need every time I want to vent that feeling.
I can feel calm when the record continues to showcase the clean twinkling harmonies in the second track ‘Kreyboyne Picnic’. The arrangement here is dynamic and non-formulaic.
Then I stumbled on the The Hotelier-angsty-melodic track ‘Public School’. I don’t know the lyrics, it’s too personal I guess. But I get it, how upset he was with the surrounding.
‘Forever Please’ is a crush song and give you some hope to continue to breath. I’m glad that the band bring this one. The last track, ‘This is Water’ is more exciting. The opening verse makes me think it’s The Menzingers building up. But it turns out with the jazzy and raw emotion of the likes Algernon Cadwallader in the last part of the song, it becomes something else.
Pictures of Vernon really sum up everything I want to hear and I want to feel. They bring up a decent record that showcases the potential of this band that can combine my favorite The Menzingers, Algernon Cadwallader and The Hotelier with plenty of twinkled melodies.
