AEM106 Young Mammals

From the moment I heard Houston-based Young Mam­mals I’ve been itch­ing to write them up.  The trou­ble is that I didn’t know what to say.  I’ve lis­tened to their debut album “Car­rots” so many times that if MP3s wore out as quickly as vinyl I’d have to pur­chase a new copy by now.  But when it comes to artic­u­lat­ing what it is that hooked me so thor­oughly, I’ve been at a loss for words.  At face value, Young Mam­mals falls under the same umbrella as a lot of the hip indie bands out there today.  Cre­at­ing artic­u­late pop music which taste­fully embraces the do-it-yourself aes­thetic that’s so in vogue nowa­days and accen­tu­at­ing it with moments of exper­i­men­tal mad­ness, this is a band that’s primed for indie star­dom.  While that’s big praise, it could apply to a lot of the artists fea­tured recently on the Ampeater Review.  It’s nice, but it’s not the whole story.  There’s some­thing really spe­cial about Young Mam­mals, a cer­tain je ne sais quoi.  I’m still not sure I’ve found the words to cap­ture it so let’s turn to the music and maybe you’ll see what I mean.

First let’s take a lis­ten to the aptly named A-side “Con­fetti” – apt because it’s about the clos­est I’ve heard a song approx­i­mate those lit­tle col­or­ful pieces of paper that peo­ple like to throw in the air at par­ties.  The first track off Car­rots, it makes for a pow­er­ful intro­duc­tion to the album.  If you lis­ten to Con­fetti you’ll hear—or rather, feel—the roar of Times Square after the ball drops, the jin­gle of Jin­gle Bells, and the bonus-round vic­tory themes of the clas­sic Nin­tendo games you played as a kid.  Or maybe you still play?

At any rate, “Con­fetti” is a two-and-a-half minute bun­dle of energy that’s sim­ply burst­ing at the seams.  It’s hard to lis­ten with­out being swept away by the euphoric power.  At the root of this eupho­ria is a gui­tar arpeg­gio which per­sists through­out prac­ti­cally the entire record­ing.  It only drops out briefly dur­ing the bridge, which allows for a pow­er­ful entrance when it reen­ters at the cli­max.  Of course, the cli­max is also height­ened by the high pitched screams.  And let’s not for­get the back­ground vocals which range from abra­sive shouts to smooth har­monies rem­i­nis­cent of a bar­ber shop quar­tet.  How­ever, the most inter­est­ing part of the song is the end­ing which pushes the lis­tener to view the exu­ber­ance of “Con­fetti” in a new light.  The cli­max of the song is so big that there’s no room left to build.  So what’s the solu­tion?  Fuck it up!

As that last vic­tory chord rings out, the shout­ing con­tin­ues, shift­ing from joy to crazed laugh­ter to pain.  At least it seems that way as the chord fades into screech­ing gui­tars.  It’s a delayed reac­tion.  It’s like that scene in some movie when this guy’s play­ing with a baby ani­mal and everybody’s mar­veling at how cute it is when sud­denly the ani­mal starts gnaw­ing on the guy’s arm and it takes a few sec­onds for every­body to real­ize what’s hap­pen­ing.  I’m not actu­ally sure if that scene exists in a movie, but I feel as if I’ve seen it sev­eral times over, and that’s cer­tainly what’s going on here.  Or in this case, I sup­pose it’s a lit­tle girl.  Car­los Sanchez (vocals, gui­tar) explains “The song is about my lit­tle sis­ter and a tem­per tantrum she had when she was 3. She thought she was inflict­ing so much pain by squeez­ing my arm as strong as she could. Of course it was funny to see a cute lit­tle 3 year old try to mur­der you.” So, behind the audi­tory con­fetti, there’s a darker side.  It cap­tures the quick shift between ecstasy and agony, the fine line between cute and exces­sively violent.

As I write, I’m slowly learn­ing to artic­u­late what makes Young Mam­mals so spe­cial.  Unlike many indie-pop bands, they really can’t be lis­tened to pas­sively.  A few weeks ago I made the mis­take of try­ing to lis­ten to “Car­rots” while I was read­ing a book.  Big mis­take.  This is vis­ceral stuff and it needs to be cranked.  A lot of music is deriv­a­tive of emo­tion.  Your girl­friend dumps you so you write a sad song.  But with Young Mam­mals I get the impres­sion that the music embodies—no, builds upon—the inspi­ra­tion in such a way that it takes on a life of its own.  “Con­fetti” isn’t about a three-year-old girl throw­ing a tem­per tantrum—it is a three-year-old girl throw­ing a tem­per tantrum.

Even in a calmer song like B-side “8–4-8”, Young Mam­mals pack a punch.  Nearly twice as long and with less lyri­cal con­tent than “Con­fetti”, it unfolds at a slow pace while Ryan Chavez’s snare-heavy drum­line gives it plenty of oomph.  I reem­pha­size, this is decep­tively intense music.  Even when the story behind the music fades, the power of the story remains.  With regard to “8–4-8”, Sanchez elab­o­rates, “I hon­estly don’t remem­ber what this song is about, it may have even orig­i­nated when we were in high school. The only thing I think of is the Polar Express. I remem­ber Cley [Miller] com­ing up with that riff and the drum line and those are my per­sonal favorite parts of that song. His gui­tar part reminds me of a tor­nado siren.” So, what is “8–4-8”?  It’s a ride on a mag­i­cal train to the North Pole, it’s a bell that only believ­ers can hear, it’s a tor­nado about to lift your house off the ground and dump it in a cow pas­ture sev­eral kilo­me­ters away… It’s what­ever you feel when you hear it.  It doesn’t really mat­ter where the music comes from but you’re def­i­nitely going to feel something.

Young Mam­mals was formed in 2004 when broth­ers Car­los Sanchez and Jose Sanchez (bass) and Cley Miller started jam­ming together.  “Every Fri­day in Cleys room we played music, lis­tened to music and we just hung out,” Sanchez rem­i­nisces.  It took a while to find a reli­able drum­mer, but finally Ryan Chavez joined the mix.  It was a per­fect fit, as his potent and non­lin­ear drum lines are an inte­gral part of the band’s energy.

“When it comes to writ­ing songs we all write together,” Sanchez elab­o­rates. “One of us will bring an idea and we all put our own per­spec­tive on to the song. When it comes to any deci­sion we usu­ally make it together.” That’s a very organic approach to song­writ­ing but in real­ity it’s not how most bands do it.  By and large, the bands I’ve encoun­tered have a leader, either offi­cial or unof­fi­cial, who writes most of the mate­r­ial and is respon­si­ble for the artis­tic direc­tion of the band.  There’s some­thing to be said for that approach—with a clear leader it’s a lit­tler eas­ier to achieve sonic con­sis­tency, a cohe­sive vision. But it’s a give and take. With a, for lack of bet­ter adjec­tive, demo­c­ra­tic band such as Young Mammals—I mean demo­c­ra­tic in the truest sense, a sys­tem in which every­body is actively involved in the deci­sion mak­ing process—you get some­thing a lit­tle more play­ful and less pre­dictable.  With nobody clearly in con­trol, any­thing can hap­pen.  Per­haps that’s the key to the je ne sai quoi I’ve been try­ing to put a fin­ger on.  Story telling is the work of an author, but when you get a cacoph­ony of authors the drama takes place in the telling of the story, not in the con­tent.  The music of Young Mam­mals is rife with the chaotic energy of four dis­tinct voices.  Go feel it for your­self.  The band is on tour for the sum­mer and they’re pass­ing through New York City this week.  Catch them at Bruar Falls tonight or the Cake Shop on Wednesday.

Nate Green­berg

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