Deep Fry Bonanza (dfbpunk.com) Review by Daniel :: 02/14/04

Recommended Release

Usually, you can tell a hell of a lot about a band from their name. However, while Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start's long as shit name seemed to connote some sort of pretension (either of the indie rock or metalcore variety), the fact that that name is a reference to an old video game from my youth indicated that these guys probably aren't much older than me and actually have a sense of humor, which could mean anything from snotty punk to bratty hardcore.

When I dropped Perris, CA into my CD player, though (AHA! I should have been looking at the album title rather than the band name; that and the faux-screen printed artwork should have brought it all together for me) I was greeted with some very big but also quite unaffected emo. I guess that there are still a number of bands playing this style, but for some reason this is the music I always associate with my early 20s, back when I was seeing Jimmy Eat World come through town touring their then-little-known Capitol releases every few months. Up Up... is exactly the type of band I would have expected to open for Jimmy Eat World circa Static Prevails. Like a good opening band, Up Up... would have been similar to the Jimmy Eat World of that era but not quite exactly the same, concentrating instead of pop melodies on dense atmospherics and other things that musicians tend to value more than actual music fans.

That isn't to say that Up Up... are anti-melodic, though, it's just that the pleasure one gets from listening to is quite different from the pleasure one gets from a simple pop song. For instance, the intro to "Please Come to Me" with it's pulpit melody and string accompaniment reminds me of the transcendant pop created by many of the early 90s British shoegazer bands.

Throughout the five all-too-brief tracks of Perris, CA, Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start prove that they are 100% in tune with the kind of musical philosophy that got most discriminating listeners into emo in the first place. Rather than crap out something like Dashboard Confessional's whiny, boring acoustic ruminations, Up Up... seem determined that one can experience the sublime through the skillful layering of gigantic guitars and hypnotic drums, and as such they find themselves as part of the growing number of bands who are actually managing to bring some respectability back to the emo genre.