The Early Years “All Ones and Zeroes”

by teabog on February 11th, 2007

The Early Years
“All Ones and Zeros”
I’m usually leery of bands with “clever” names, and an LP titled “The Early Years” from a band named “The Early Years” should have sent me running away. But I was sucked in by the boilerplate press-release text at insound.com’s website:

“The chilling, psychedelia-drenched self-titled debut from this UK band is a dense mix of the trio’s influences: Spiritualized, Mogwai, Television, Neu, and Tortoise.”

And since I had to order another cd to get free shipping I said “what the hell” and added it to my cart. Then my order came a week later and I didn’t play for a while, because of its clever name. And then, when I finally did play it, I hated the first ten seconds of “Ones and Zeroes” because it sounded like something I’d hear on college radio.

But I gave it a chance, and the teaser text was right. The Early Years sound play the same four or five chords over and over like Television and they build towards big crescendos like Mogwai. And I suppose they sound a little bit like Tortoise, too, since they drone a bit. Nothing like Spiritualized or Neu!, though, but that’s not a bad thing since I don’t see how Neu! and Spirtiulized would sound good mixed with those other bands.

Even though I kinda said in my last post that I wouldn’t do so any more, I have reverted to name dropping in order to describe this track because I can’t really figure out why I like it. It drones out without anything that resembles a hook, the lyrics are just a guy repeating the line “all ones… and zeeeroes.” I just like it. It’s got the same kind of opium-stupor “uhhh that’s pretty” hooklessness of the bands mentioned in the teaser text, but it’s very different from most of those bands because it doesn’t sound at all spacey or floaty. It doesn’t veer off into guitar solos, it doesn’t lay down keyboard backgrounds. It just captures your attention with two guitars, drums, and a bunch of effects pedals.

The myspace of The Early Years.
Buy the limited edition two disc set at Insound.