• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

May 19, 2014 Web Exclusive By J. Pace

It’s always a pleasure to get a quintessential representation of any band four full-lengths in—something that deftly mixes the strengths of each plateau in their growing body of work, not resting on any laurels (real or imagined) but synergistically fusing it all into a (Molotov) cocktail of bad-assery. Such is Easy Pain.

Young Widows have very much perfected their massive brand of three-piece noise rock here. Trapped in the headphones, you get good-cop/bad-copped right away. Bassist Nick Thieneman provides a swift punch in the face (try to write a review and not devote every last word to this guy’s bass playing—every goddamn note he delivers is planet-sized end punctuation) while Evan Patterson’s guitars dance around the small, reflective interrogation room, gritty but settling into mesmerizing, comforting phrases. His tortured talk-singing just drips with paranoia—you can’t get a read on it. The energy is contradictory: claustrophobic and oppressive, strident and expansive.

Easy Pain effectively seizes the tooth-gritting intensity of 2008’s Old Wounds and delivers it through the unsettling ambience of 2011’s In and Out of Youth and Lightness. It’s a winning slew of dark, whiskey-soaked Kentucky; the obligatory Touch & Go or AmRep noise-rock touchstones; the entire Nick Cave discography; and a nine-alarm fire. The tone Young Widows strike is so uniquely acute—a violent kinetic energy, a ride along the ridges of peak intensity, a fucking threat and an absolute treat. Embrace the pain; it’s easy. (www.young-widows.blogspot.com)

Author rating: 8/10