Athletics - Why Aren't I Home?

Athletics, paints a picture similar to that of Explosions In the Sky and The Appleseed Cast.

Deep Elm Records have an amazing track record of consistency. While labels around them seem to adopt genres, change styles, break, fold and sell, this Charlotte-based enterprise has never once wavered and for years now, have released some of the most intriguing and captivating indie rock and emo records.

One of their latest acts, Athletics, paints a picture similar to that of Explosions In the Sky and The Appleseed Cast. Their brush is part melodic, part patient, and the end image is endlessly contemplative and at times explosive. It’s music for the senses without being a burden. From the opening salvo of the terrific title track, to the expansive and beautifully emotive “Jordan”, there is plenty to digest through Why Aren’t I Home?

It’s textured from instrumental soundscapes (in “Speaking For Everyone”) and temperamental indie rock (“Lullaby”) to Midwestern emo (the closing “The Cost of Living”) and is every bit as warming as early records from The Appleseed Cast and Brandtson. Matter of factly, the latter’s 1999 album, The Fallen Star Collection, bears a striking musical and emotional resonance to Why I Aren’t Home?

Athletics have debuted with a refined sense of assurance, and the album is an amazing palette of post-rock beauty, indie rock cool and emo melancholia. They may call Asbury Park home, but their music traverses far past the Jersey state, over the oceans and into the stars. Dream a little.

(Deep Elm Records)