Prawn
Kingfisher
12 August 2014
Topshelf
3 stars out of 5
Despite having chosen a singularly idiotic band name, the quintet
of WASP-y suburban New Jersey lads who make up Prawn seem to have made up for
it with a careful study of ‘90s emo, drawing on genre pioneers such as The
Dismemberment Plan and Sunny Day Real Estate as inspiration for Kingfisher, their second LP. As for what
Prawn themselves bring to the table, that is less easy to distinguish—but even
though Kingfisher follows very
closely the standard emo template without much innovation, as a genre exercise
it’s relatively alright, so let’s give it a closer listen, shall we?
Well, on closer listen, it does indeed seem that Prawn were
trying to make a seven inch single, wrote ten versions of the same song, and
then decided to use the outtakes to extend it into an LP. From “Scud Running”
to “Halcyon Days,” Kingfisher is more
or less the same shimmering testament to suburban angst over its ten tracks.
Sure, lots of bands sound basically the same from song to song (White Lung,
anyone?), but still manage to sound like themselves while doing so. Prawn doesn’t
have that distinct identity of its own.
Have we entered the era of emo traditionalists now? Those
who out of false nostalgia (for they’re far too young to have lived through the
first wave themselves) attempt to recreate the world built by the visionary emo
originators? It shouldn’t come as a surprise, as every genre seems to be
recycled on a regular basis. Why should emo be any different?
reviewed by Richard Krueger
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