A glance at The Yacht Club’s Instagram bio will tell you how they are constantly ‘fighting their guitars’. It’s a truthful statement, yet one that doesn’t sound as bad or negative as one might think. You see, the London-based math rockers are perhaps fighting with their instruments, but a more precise definition might be that they are dancing with them. That’s at least how ‘The Greatest Misadventure’ sounds to us: an effortless, highly technical piece that relies heavily on delicate fingerstyle guitar technique and complex melodic patterns, placing itself somewhere in between math rock and Midwest emo.
Marking the latest release by The Yacht Club, ‘The Greatest Misadventure’ showcases the enhanced aural work done by head honcho Marcus Godda, Henry Fears, Tom Joy, and Alex Esp. Echoing the virtuoso-laden territories of Covet, Yvette Young, and TTNG, among others, the talented band develops an aural imprint that’s drenched in high-level musicianship but also packed with emotions and feelings. That’s a good outcome for a math rock project: it’s not just all weird time signatures and relentless riffing. There’s also tender, melancholic melodism in it.
Delving deeper into the record, Godda explains: “Before releasing our new album, we wanted to pay respect to what came before. ‘The Greatest Misadventure’ was a song we loved, but had long forgotten how to play. It was invigorating to revive this in a fresh new light all these years later! Whilst we were in between guitarists before Henry joined, we had longtime producer and collaborator Tom Hill (who recorded this and the original song) play guitar on this with us.”
Recommended! Discover ‘The Greatest Misadventure’ now: