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ALBUM REVIEW: "Wait For Love" by Pianos Become The Teeth

   Indie/emo staples Pianos Become The Teeth have completed one of the most remarkable shapeshifting acts in recent memory with the arrival of their fourth full length album, Wait For Love. Initially, on their first record Old Pride, they presented an incredibly raw and emotionally draining screamo experience which was honed to near perfection on their second full length, The Lack Long After (now a screamo and emo standard, and for good reason). 2014's Keep You saw them double back into a more subdued sound, notable mostly for vocalist Kyle Durfey's stylistic shift away from screaming in favour of a more traditional singing performance. It must be said, though, that this shift was down to much more than simply a decision to stop screaming - the sound as a whole shifted to a more tired melancholy in comparison to the frantic and almost panicked devastation of the first two records. Keep You was a devastatingly beautiful album in its own right, but definitely had its flaws. Much like how The Lack Long After improved upon Old Pride in every aspect, Wait For Love has taken the new elements that the band introduced on Keep You and grown and nurtured them into the best version of what this incarnation of Pianos Become The Teeth could be.
   It is an absolutely masterful album, beginning to end.
   It bears saying twice; I absolutely love The Lack Long After and their older sound in general - it is as beautiful and tear-jerking as it is crushing and devastating. But there is something about what Pianos Become The Teeth have produced on this album in particular that incites a genuinely draining cocktail of loss and hope. Some might comment that Wait For Love is the band's "happy" album, and to a certain degree that is true; opener "Fake Lighting" is definitely the most upbeat opening to a Pianos album to date, and the neon-paint laced music video for lead single "Charisma" drew not unwarranted comparisons to a certain pop megapower. But the brighter elements of this album only serve to make the shadows and twilight all the more darker.
   The material that Durfey deals with has always been harrowing to say the least, and while the loudness factor of The Lack Long After served as a kind of counterpoint (while also making it even more painful), Keep You if anything lacked such a crossroads at which pain and ecstasy could dance around each other. For me this is where Wait For Love really excels - where Keep You lacked the variation to be completely effective, Wait For Love ebbs and flows and drags in both directions way too frequently for my emotions to keep up.
   Wait For Love is an early contender for my album of 2018, and definitely a record that you should check out this month. Just don't say I didn't warn you.

   Favourite Tracks: Charisma, Bay Of Dreams and Manila

    Least Favourite Track: Dry Spells

   Rating: A

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