Words by Jason Lee
Photo by Human Flower Productions
Eevie Echoes & The Locations‘ debut full-length The Cons Of Being A Wallflower (produced by live sound engineer, drummer, and studio producer extraordinaire Zach Rescignano, released on Ska Punk International) is one of those records that arrives seemingly fully formed with a wide-ranging but coherent sound and a strong presence at its center that’s nearly sure to appeal to all those with a past as a “Hot Topic pop-punk emo kid [into] The Veil, Fall Out Boy, Green Day, Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance” and Laura Jane Grace of Against Me! most especially with the pop-punk emo kid vibe coming thru loud and clear from the jump on the opening two tracks about, respectively, lack of career opportunities and digital-age overstimulation, but as usual there’s more to the story…
Mixed by Reade Wolcott — Mastered by Bill Henderson — Artwork by Anna Sorokina
… cuz by track number three Eevie E. (lead vocals, guitar) & company are already flipping the script with a song called “Liar” that’s just as much Sonics or Sex Pistols’ covering “Steppin’ Stone” as Taking Back Sunday, a song that with its self-incriminating lyrics (I lead a double life / maybe three / I’m scared / I got social anxiety) and IDGAF garage rock strut ’n’ sneer serves as a Platonic embodiment of conflicted adolescent vulnerability/invincibility except dialed up even higher as it would logically be for any trans teen or young adult facing the pain of being harshly judged when summoning the bravery to undergo transition…
….or as Eevie puts it in the online liner notes to the record, “The Cons Of Being A Wallflower is the product of unhappy and unproductive conversations with family, feelings of dissociation and depersonalization, bottled-up anger and a gradual shift toward self-love in trying times,” further describing elsewhere how the songs “tell the story of a girl who’s just coming into herself for the first time, who’s in this very raw state of being freshly out, and who has to navigate a post-quarantine world, [who] simultaneously wants to be seen and loved but also has experienced the repercussions of what happens when you live as a visible, out, trans perso. [It] leads her to find unhealthy ways to cope with the feelings she’s having [but] she learns to love who she is in the moment and commits to growing and changing for the better“…
…so maybe it’s no coincidence that the middle stretch of The Cons Of Being A Wallflower is chock full of transitioning like on “Apathy” which transitions from being a delicate acoustic guitar-based ballad to a mid-tempo pop-punk lighter-waver to a throat-shredding volcanic finale or “Letters U Wrote” which goes from yearning piano-based glam pop with vocal harmonies to Third Wave not-so-easy-skanking ska punk to a throat-shredding vocanic finale or “Users” which goes from mellow psych-pop to full-on flannel-waving grunge rock to an explosive string-shredding guitar-solo finale…
photos by Human Flower Productions
…with the operative word being “shredding” whether we’re talking Eevie Echoes’ Cobain-worthy vocal cord shreddage or the shredding of various forms of socially enforced self-containment or the shredding of all those users and abusers laying in wait out there but with the corollary that even a handful of close compatriots can help one to stay the course just take The Locations for instance who locate and echo the songs’ deepest emotional cores in musical form in the form of Emma Fissinger on guitar, piano, and backing vocals, Nick Grasso on drums and Carmen Castillo on bass and backing vocals, while making anyone with a pulse wanna pogo around the room or leap into the mosh pit if lucky enough to be at an actual EE&TL show…
…but in closing don’t get it twisted cuz no matter how serious the themes on The Cons Of Being A Wallflower may be it’s also mucho fun too both musically and lyrically and btw “serious fun” is seriously a thing as in you can be both at once like on the album-closing “Odd Man Out” where Eevie finds herself “tired of being the odd man out / cuz I know I’m not a man / the odd one out / ‘cause I’m taking est-ro-gen” and whether you happen to be on a journey of transitioning or simply in need of a shot of sonic adrenaline and lyrical leveling up for breaking down any barriers standing in the way of your own authentic self-expression then you may wanna give the record a spin…
