Album Review: Turnover- Peripheral Vision
2 min read
Virginia’s Turnover have made a name for themselves as an unashamed emo-pop band with a sound that takes me back to be being fourteen and listening to Fall Out Boy and Panic at the Disco. It is simple but emotional and easily understandable. Their newest album, Peripheral Vision, takes a bit of a detour: the band has bought a reverb pedal!
This is not to say that the themes from their previous sound do not come through on this newest LP. The emotional frustration is there, it is just a bit more subdued; a bit more subtle. Its an album about being in your early twenties. Suddenly being an adult. Going from growing up to growing old. The track Hello Euphoria begins with “I feel thinner at the waistline/ I am getting older everyday there is a new line”
It actually feels to me like Turnover on this album have grabbed the best parts of the older ;’emo-rock’ tradition and the best parts of the current ‘hipster-reverb-drenched indie rock’ and smashed them together to form a solid pop-rock album. The sound is lucid. The band have taken the emo ability to talk straight and express oneself clearly, whilst eliminating all of that self-pitying whining. The vocals aren’t overwhelmed by the effects on the instruments and they sound refreshingly sober. It is so nice to hear a singer who isn’t singing as if he or she is stoned or drunk. On tracks like New Scream, Humming and Diazepam are clear and straight to the point.
This is not a complex album. There are no hidden messages that someone will find in here. The instruments do not try and redefine genres by bending any established norms. What you hear is what you get. There are some moments when the grooves will catch you. Or else the singer will make you think about the way you are living your life. But that is really it. There are a few moments when the tempo will suddenly slow and the band goes into a Pavement-like slow jam, like on Take My Head. But these are rare and far between.
This does not make Peripheral Vision a bad album. It is just a simple album. If this is what you like, then it is definitely worth a listen.
