im back from my week long deadline-filled hell. have haruno sumire's erik as a treat

Greatest Hits - Remo Drive

Almost a year later I’m posting my first review!! Hooray!!!

Remo Drive is a band from Bloomington, Minnesota. They’ve had quite the upbringing with music, releasing this debut record on their own and signing to Epitaph Records in 2018. But that’s not what you’ve come to read, you can read that kind of stuff on their wiki page.

Before I get into the review, I want to mention that I’m probably going to make some points that Anthony Fantano has made, and if you wanna hear someone review this record much better than I can, go watch his review!

As a debut record and the only full piece of music that I’ve listened to from the band so far, Greatest Hits truly shocked me. Most debut records are somewhat well put together and a little rough at points depending on the artist, but it seems that Remo Drive just had a good grip on what they were doing. And for being a self-released and I believe self-produced record, once again, not horrible. It’s a really put together emo record, which is hard to really come by anymore and I’m sad to hear that this genre didn’t stay constant with their sophomore record. All in all, the record as a whole was really nice, really constant, and I’d describe it as my personal soundtrack for when the world ends. Onto some individual track reviews!

Art School is really an amazing opening track to this record and sets the bar really well for what you’d be getting into when listening. Opening with some really crashy drums and a clean yet gain heavy guitar riff. It tells the story of playing a show and your loved one not being there, never supporting you. The lyrics are simple yet descriptive, and I really do have to give credits to the band for keeping that simple yet descriptive aspect on most tracks. Great song, great starter, and once again, it truly sets the bar for this record.

Hunting for Sport is my personal favorite on the record, having a sort of constant whine in the vocals and a sort of balance between loud and quiet in the song, as pre-choruses cut out guitar in exchange for a scratchy sample I’m guessing is still from guitar. I’d like to applaud Erik Paulson for this track as he keeps the vocals very whine-like and keeps them very raw, and his vocals are generally like this throughout the record but it shows more in this song imo. With vocals like this mixed with metaphorical and emotional lyrics, everything just ties together really nicely to make this a great track.

Some small things about other tracks before I get to the big one:

Eat Shit sounds so oddly similar to Beach Bunny’s Adulting that it’s actually starting to freak me out. While both songs have different tones, there’s still something that sounds similar within the instrumentals, just different approaches. Lyrical content-wise, the songs are much more similar, both being about maturing from your teenage years and growing to be an actual adult, or at least getting to your twenties. While they both stay on that topic, Eat Shit is more about being hurt a lot as a teenager and adult and trying to grow out of it, while Adulting is more on the general topic of the title, adulting.

A point that Fantano brought up in his review is that this record has sort of an In Utero sound to it, to which I’d disagree. I definitely feel like the track Trying 2 Fool U is heavily influenced by Nirvana but has more of a Nevermind sort of feel. I think I personally agree more with the inspiration specifically from Weezer’s Pinkerton. This sounds very Why Bother like, and I’m not complaining about it.

Back to the normal track reviews:

This one is unavoidable, as I can't talk about this record without bringing up it’s very successful single, Yer Killin’ Me. With the music video sitting at over three million views, I think it’s safe to say that this track is what sort of finally got Remo Drive off their feet. Edgy lyrics, edgy vocals, edgy guitar, everything in this song could be classified as edgy until you hit the 2:45 mark where it turns into a cute acoustic session with just acoustic guitar and dreamlike vocals. This song is just a mess in the best way possible, and I feel like that’s what makes it so great. I personally found this song in 2018, the peak of my emo phase - which means I thought it was absolutely perfect with no flaws- and even two years later I think this song is golden, although I don’t hold it to such a high place anymore. The lyrics seem to be speaking of being so bored and annoyed with someone that it angers you, and I think this once again shows amazingly in Paulson's vocals. The almost screaming vocals are just so fitting for the matter and the general tone of the song, once again, I applaud. And while I did say that Art School sets the bar really well for this record, for listeners who came from this track, Yer Killin’ Me sets the bar much better.

Lastly, I’ll talk about the closing track Name Brand. Although somewhat confusing lyric-wise, as a whole I think this track wraps the record up quite nicely, still staying constant to the record and its tone and general sound. Very gain heavy and almost grunge sounding guitars, along with some really nice bass - I haven’t really delved into it but the bass on this record was amazing - and Paulson’s vocals once again amaze me. As a song, amazing, and as a closing track, even better.

My only problem with this record is as a whole it seems really long and ongoing but only runs a length of 37 minutes. The songs while long are mostly instrumental and lack lyrical content for such long instrumentals. I love instrumentals, but there’s just so much on this record that it gets a bit stale. And once again, I am sad to hear that Remo Drive’s sophomore record doesn’t compare to this. I’ll still give it a listen and review it, but I’m not exactly the most excited about it.

All in all, I’d rate this record a solid 8/10. The instrumentals and vocals stayed constant but not so constant that all the songs sound the same, and the lyrics really do compare to that of an early 2000′s emo record, which is what I’d categorize this record as. More specifically a 2010′s emo record done very well. I would definitely recommend it to people who like MCR but want something with sort of a different feel and approach. Specific songs I’d listen to start with would be Yer Killin’ Me and Art School.