Austin Sound

Legs Against Arms’ debut EP gives a glimpse at what we could see later this year with their first full-length release. With a title like Come On Let’s Disappear, you’re going to mine connotative thoughts of early decade alt-rock bands playing radio-friendly tunes and getting placement on crummy WB teen dramas. But Legs Against Arms manages to overstep such dubious prejudices despite the presence of cinematic crescendos and throaty, heart felt vocals — there’s something more bubbling below. It’s somewhere between the glassy, streamlined rock and roll of the EP’s first three tracks and the conclusive two-part epic of Disappear’s’s last two songs, “B.I.O.L.O.G.Y.” and “Paper Ships”.

At first, Legs Against Arms sound decade fresh — three aptly written songs that infuse cinematic build with confident and hopeful pop-rock. Co-singers/songwriters Daniel Dillon and Bruce Ewing sing with as much unabashed sincerity as they write. There’s an urgency readily available in their voices that’s only peeked at in the first half of Disappear. Instead, what we get are three humble undertakings of well-adjusted post-punk. Album opener, “The Applicant”, is the most typical example. With its metronomic guitar stabs, gushy piano flourishes, and sugar-sweet sing-along-in-your-car melody, it’s almost too good of a PG-rated opener to be true. The local quartet keeps the atmosphere cool through the bittersweet ballad “Stability” and into the dancey disco beat of “Diamond Ring”.

With “B.I.O.L.O.G.Y.” and closer “Paper Ships”, LAA takes the last ten minutes on Disappear to combine the emotional force of their ability to make healthy, topical rock and heart-throb pop song-craft. After a one line of verse, “B.I.O.L.O.G.Y.” quickly builds into a dramatic, hot-blooded crescendo that dies down into what are the beginning piano chords of “Paper Ships”. Here, Legs Against Arms are at their most impassioned and vulnerable, attempting to properly close the book on an album that contained such unabashed emotional depth in so short a time. Dillon/Ewing at full volume with the band careening over the cliff to meet them makes for some powerful listening.

While the EP plays well with few somber moments, the textural and dynamic songwriting in Disappear seems almost too expansive for the half-size shoes of an EP. It’s much more fitted for the spacious confines of a full-length release. It’s almost as if the band spends most of their time building up crescendos as opposed to playing their songs — which is exactly what makes standouts “The Applicant” and “Diamond Ring” such unmistakable favorites. The sharp instrumentation does a lot of work to keep melodramatic vocal lines from over-saturating things, and admittedly so. In a post by co-songwriter Bruce Ewing about the making of the EP: “Daniel [Dillon] wanted to add harp solos to every track but we had to draw the line somewhere.”

Websites:
www.legsagainstarms.com
Myspace