Album Review: 'Stay Inside' by Elder Brother
By Makayla Corfield | Photo by Jeffrey Wright
I honestly cried… I had that strong of an emotional response to indie-rock duo Elder Brother’s album Stay Inside. For the first time, I honestly have almost nothing I can say, except to just listen to this album. It just plays with so many emotions. So, here we go, trying to put words to all of these emotions: Heartbreak. Love. Comfort. Hatred. Anger. Sadness.
On my first listen, I was just listening to the music and not paying attention to really anything. The songs are all really well done and are just something you can move your head along to or just sway to. The songs open usually with different guitar riffs,chords, or drum beats being played, and it makes each song just that much more different, yet the same from the last.
“Greatest Hit,” which is the opening track on the album, caught my attention because you don’t really hear just an instrumental opening track for an album. They usually just start with a fast-paced song to just get you up and moving. It was a great approach they used to open the album in this way because it's sad piano music and rain, and another noise that reminds me of the game Minecraft, mixed with some sort of horror movie.
For the third and fourth track, my very first opinion of the songs are that they are about love, then I noticed a small little line, “mixing medication,” and all of a sudden, it makes sense to me: it's about love and drugs and how it’s all amazing until you get kicked by reality and realize how what you loved was poison. The fourth track, “Sway” (I’m a high school student, so bear with me and my ignorance) reminds me of that feeling of finally going to a school dance that someone asked you to. You don’t have a fun time, but you took the time to put on your fanciest clothes. On top of that, this track is just like saying, “We had everything but now, not so much.” We are poisoning ourselves with what we think is helping us, but it's really killing us.
It is the last three songs on the album that hit me really hard, and I was really not expecting it. Right when you hit the second half of the album, it’s a real soft change in every song to something that becomes really raw and slower by the ninth song “Battle.” The last three songs on this album are slow and very melancholic. It’s a heartbreak I feel like I know, because I’ve lost so many relationships this year and gives off the feeling of just trying to save something that's unsalvageable.
Soothing vocals, upbeat sad songs, no words I write can express what I felt while listening to this album. Thank you, because no album or song has ever made me feel something so strong that it just hit like a ton of bricks. I can not wait for this album, Stay Inside by Elder Brothers, to be released on May 18th so other people can hear these amazing songs.