The Emergencyâ„¢

CD REVIEWS FOR DOO-LANG DOO-LANG
SMOTHER.NET - Much like their great last album “How Can You Move”, it’s populated with power-pop ballads and perfectly fashioned hooks. There’s a definite take on The Who throughout “Doo-Lang Doo-Lang” as they stretch out their garage rock wings a bit. Biting down on lyrical cleverness again, they paint various stories without tracing—no paint-by-numbers rock ‘n’ roll here. Rarely will you hear an album that refuses to put out a single song that has you even think about reaching for that darned ‘skip’ button. Churning pop ballads that hook you right in and hold you close to softly croon you into a pop-rock heaven where John Lennon says “damn I’m impressed with your songwriting mate!” Loud drumming, tender vocals, and veining guitar-centric indie pop, “Doo-Lang Doo-Lang” is a breathtaking album. Someone wake me up—why aren’t these guys signed yet? I swear I’m going to make it my mission to see about fixing that. The Emergency truly are one of the best kept secrets in indie rock music right now.
CORNZINE.COM - Doo Lang, Doo Lang, the follow-up to their debut album, is amazing. There, I said it. The album picks up where the last one left off, lifting heavily from the bands influences (The Who, Cheap Trick, Guided By Voices, Husker Du, etc.) and they still continue to put their own twists into the mix... They’re still one of the best rock and roll bands in the state and continue to put out amazing music.
RAWKSTAR.NET - I describe them as Magic Numbers with a bit of the Who and some Cheap Trick thrown in for good measure, which isn't shocking since they cite those last two as big influences. Crystal-clear shiny lead guitar with soft bass, light cymbal-heavy drumming and British-Indie style singing - you know, a little flat, a little factual... if you've heard of The Wedding Present, think David Gedge mixed in with a little bit of Cake. If you've heard of Cake. Which you should've. Some tracks are quite good, some are quite bland, and some start with really ace riffs and get horridly dull about 20 seconds through. A good example of this is track ten, Home To Hide In - the riffs are great, the basic framework's fantastic, but, well, the top line melody is... pointless. In fact, out of tune. In some areas, really out of tune. It just makes the song quite boring. It's tempting to just pick out the best tracks and base the album review on those, because when the tracks are good, they're really good. Track 15, for example, called Anxiety All The Time, is quite catchy, and builds up nicely, but lasts less than a minute and a half. It left me wanting more. But more was not what I got. What I got was Eggs And Bacon. No, not breakfast. If it were breakfast, it would be unsweetened porridge. Perhaps there would be half a raisen in here and there. But mostly just porridge. Flick back to Hey Whoopy Cat, I tell myself, find the good bits again. Yes, Hey Whoopy Cat is undeniably good. I can imagine quite a lot of Indie-kid pogoing could accompany this track, and I would be the first to leap on the pogo stick. A good, upbeat, friendly track. Good vocals - a bit of harmony even. But then your two minutes is up, and Get A Job drops in. And you suddenly realise that you look a bit of a prat: you stand there on the dancefloor, and your eyes open like those of a newborn kitten: and you head to the bar / loos / jukebox. Unfortunately, these tracks are buried in a big heap of brown-paper mulch, and picking them out takes some patience and a lot of wading through boringness. It may or may not be worth it. I'd easily give the good tracks an eight, but the sheer mundanity of the rest of the album drags them down. Sorry guys. Especially to the bassist, who looks a bit like Jack Black. Definitely better than Coldplay...
TASTYFANZINE - The Emergency try very hard to catch you out. Beginning with a deceptively simple sound (think The Super Furry Animals and the Kinks blended to a smooth paste in a food mixer), their second album takes in a few twists and turns along the way. The first half dozen or so songs go straight for the jugular. Power chords, strident vocals team up with simple melodies made to be sung out loud, the opener 'Do the Uptight - United States Now' setting the tone with its grinding guitars. 'Whoopy Cat' is a stand-out with its jaunty chorus and you will be struggling not to join in by the time the chorus declares 'I build you up / just to let you down'. There is, however, something slightly sterile about the sound in this first half that lends itself more to power pop than hard rock, a bit of a surprise for an underground band from West Virginia who make a living playing college gigs. Half way through the lighters come out for 'Magic Town' and the album takes a melancholy turn. Almost every song in the second half takes up the central theme of broken dreams and the production gives these later songs space to build and develop. This is typified on the marvellously titled 'Sharper Chins Prevail' (all the pretty boys have them apparently) where the bittersweet melody breaks up into a 'Hey Jude' style outro. But The Emergency's bread and butter is the two minute power-pop number and, if you like your songs loud and fun, there is plenty amongst these 16 tracks to savour.
RUSSELLSREVIEWS.CO.UK - ...somewhat dull. A lot of it is MOR blues-rock, with a little boogie thrown in for good measure. The singer's voice is good though, and sometimes reminiscent of Wiz from Mega City 4. The only two slight rays of light come with the shoe-gazing and spacious 'I Can't See The Sea' and the sluggish groove of 'Magic Town'. Aside from that there's not a great deal to see here.
DISKANT.COM - Worryingly the immediate strokes of this album present me with some of the cleanest (plainest) sounding guitar I have heard in a very long time combined with a "riff" that sounds as if it were lifted directly out of a Who songbook. And the attention from this is only taken away by the unintentionally piercing cymbal sound. I am sure the band themselves would be first to admit the production values leave a little (lot) to be desired. I experience my own emergency as I listen to this record with a judgemental hat as I fail to find one single positive thing to say about it whilst being in full knowledge that a hell of a lot of time and effort has been squeezed into these sixteen songs. As I stated at the beginning, contained within this record are some of the loudest sounding cymbals ever recorded and it really is an overwhelming aspect of a lot of the album (Albini drums these are not). By the end of the record I don't know where the sound fits or where it is intended to fit - was it purposely recorded badly? With ideas lifted straight out of the indie pop book of songs, the tracks are delivered with competency but seldom do they rock or hook. Opening with those "Who-esqe riffs", the album kicks off in an upbeat manner but it is a positive manner akin to a pub or covers band. Gradually as the album moves on it begins to reach out and attempt to become a bit more expansive but with wayward recording and a vocal delivery that could make a person drown kittens, fairly decent stabs at tunes entering a field around Teenage Fanclub and/or Guided By Voices just become bogged down and disappointing. For some reason I thought they were Scottish and it is at this point that I realise they are not. I'm really saddened to say that there truly is not much I find I can take from this record, a song called "Hey Whoopy Cat" only achieves the same kind of reaction from me that the Proclaimers attain while "Pictures On The Wall" feels painfully dated as it exists reminiscent of The Wonder Stuff. Ironically the song with the strongest hook is called "Get A Job" - good advice. Thesaurus moment: unimaginative.
READJUNK.COM - You get the sense that The Emergency wants to rock. Obviously, they've been listening to their Cheap Trick and Queen and Husker Du, and giving em an indie rock twist, but holy crap - I don't think I've ever cared less about a band. These guys need to concern themselves less with their sound and more with writing good music. I really don't have the time to listen to a band that can't escape the shadow of their influences. But if they really can't come up with something good, at least emulate AC/DC - they're simple, they're fun, and you know what? THEY ROCK. Even if you have to indie-fy them, it could still be pretty rockin. So keep that in mind bub. Cuz this shit you're playing is so dull, even rocks are like "crap, I wish I wasn't a rock!" Bottom Line: Super boring/bland indie rock that seems to want to ROCK!
FIRESIDEOMETER.COM - When I saw the band's name, I immediately thought of Emergency and I, a great album that gets referenced in my reviews more than it probably should. I hear bits and pieces of the Dismemberment Plan throughout Doo-Lang Doo-Lang. In addition to The Plan, The Emergency are one of the few bands who actually do manage to incorporate a lot of bits from the bands they claim as influences. The harmonies and cascading, barbershop backups on 'Eggs and Bacon' could have been pulled wholesale from 'Yellow Submarine' or Queen, two disparate sounds that both find a home in The Emergency's mish-mash, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink aesthetic. 'Hey Whoopy Cat' is a pretty ace distillation of The Emergency's sound, with its (here it is again) Beatlesque melody, its Cheap Trick (another band-acknowledged influence) guitarwork, and its frenetic rat-a-tat-tat drumming.
PHASE9.TV - The Emergency, from Morgantown, West Virginia, plays a kind of guitar pop and describe The Who as one of the bands that they have borrowed from. While this may or may not be true, there is an English influence that creeps into their music and you could easily mistake them as an English band. As this is the group’s second album, they start in confidence with the opening six-minute track DO THE UPTIGHT...UNITED STATES NOW. Amazingly, this does not feel like a six-minute track and the following track I CAN’T SEE THE SEA is a bit of an anticlimax. That is not to say that there is anything wrong with the song, but it should have been placed elsewhere on the track list. NOT ANGRY explores a relationship that was not meant to be. Perhaps, due to this, to make sure things go smoothly the next time, he builds a LIE DETECTOR. Here the band sound like they have been recorded live in the studio and is probably a fair reflection of how they will sound on stage, but on a CD they should sound a little more polished. You notice the difference in production on HEY WHOOPY CAT and this is what makes the album all the better. With just a couple of dips in quality control, the rest of the album is a stormier and sounds a lot more hard in parts. At least The Emergency is not another one of those numerous “punk” outfits that can be found all over the American music scene. On MAMA TOLD ME, the group are brave enough to go into a decent instrumental break for the second half of the track. Most of the lyrics are slightly sad but at least the music is upbeat enough to ensure that listener will give the album repeated listens. Hopefully the group will ignore their own lyrics in SHARPER CHINS PREVAIL where “now’s the time to break up the band”. This album just does not give up once it gets in gear and neither should the group. 5 out of 6 stars
INDIEVILLE.COM - These guys were a surprise treat for me with their last How Can You Move? album, and I was pretty psyched when this new effort fell into my lap. The Emergency sure can write a pop song. Imagine a more college-rock version of Guided By Voices and you've got a pretty accurate picture of what these boys do. They have a very distinct melodic style, which is a good thing, and they exude a sincere passion for their music. It's worth noting that the vocals are a tad unpolished, occasionally failing to match up perfectly with the climactic power chords and crashing percussion. But at their best - on memorable anthems like "I Can't See the Sea" and "Kill the Devil" - they manage to make any flaws seem unimportant. Not all songs are the pick of the litter, for sure, (too-long opener "Do The Uptight - United States Now", irritating "Anxiety All The Time"), but there's plenty here to keep a pop lover busy. Doo-Lang Doo-Lang marks the second great offering from this criminally overlooked troupe.
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