They're Not From England & they're Amazing.
When they say that they're Not From England, then you must believe them, but you must also think that there's a meaningful intention behind such a curious moniker. Is there a clue to be found in their newest work, "Guest House", regarding the origin of their name? "Instigator" for instance opens the album up with a riff that's highly reminiscent of earlier Bond film scores with a surf rock flavor that's tied together by the drums, these sonic vistas of a shimmering two-tone blue horizon dotted by sailboats and seagulls are propelled ever forward in your mind by almost every track, and it is perhaps the indelible mark of the Pacific Ocean vistas in the minds of its members that fueled this contemplative and somewhat melancholic ever-summer of an album. The titular track, "Guest House" shifts its weight around as it lazily lounges around your ears, led by a surprisingly harsh slacker's croon that gives the rest of the album a unique "Sgt. Pepper but post-punk" attitude, however, even at its hypest or most eclectic moments, the band echoes just enough of a hint of British Shoegaze in their blood that their puzzling name pops up again in your mind as you take in tracks like "Good Morning Thieves" or "Don't Get Me Wrong". As interesting and as cool as their name might come digging, digging too deep about what it means isn't all that important as it is simply accepting it as part of the Band's mystique, looking for hidden depths only detracts from just letting go and getting swept by the candid effervescence that these young guys bring to the table. Not From England was formed by friends Cass, Leo, DeRon, and Beckett, and their extremely sharp musicianship belie their young age for sure, something that I think probably plays in their favor when they get up on stage in front of completely new audiences who might be a little older than they are.
"Guest House is a series of songs Not From England wrote over the past three years in their former guest house rehearsal space, resulting in a spillage of their heart and soul."
Guest House isn't exactly a concept album, it seems to lack any kind of real overarching narrative, but the running themes and cohesiveness of it all almost make it feel like they were gunning for that kind of conceptual experience from the get-go. Almost every song in the album touches on the notion of changing, of transitional periods, and the conflict between realizing the impermanence of things and holding on to it all just a bit longer. Throughout the album, each member got the opportunity to record vocals, a very unorthodox methodology to say the least, but one that ended up working brilliantly for the band because it provides quite a bit of diversity on a song-by-song basis while not feeling jarring or disjointed whatsoever. The professionalism of the band is so high, that they ended up recording almost the entire thing in a single Bedroom somewhere in Culver City, the band handled all production and engineering for the album and then turned over their rough mix to FIDLAR’s Max Kuehn in Highland Park for Final Mixing and mastering duties.
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