The Landmarks Embrace Ambition and Forgo Genre Constrictions With Mythological Future/s?! (KEXP Premiere)

Local Music, KEXP Premiere
05/01/2018
Dusty Henry
Photo by Eric Luck

One of my favorite things about the Internet era of music is how artists get to dictate their own genres. Speedy Ortiz famously dubbed themselves as “snack rock,” Portland’s Cool American call themselves “dorito pop”, and there’s an entire movement of music is burgeoning under the name “naturewave” (should you opt to trevass the depths of Bandcamp, I highly recommend it). But I’m particularly fond of how Seattle-via-Ann Arbor quintet The Landmarks describe themselves on their Facebook page: “Indie Blah Blah.”

It’s easy to take that descriptor with a healthy dose of cynicism. After all, these days you can add “indie” to any genre and that’s supposed to mean something to someone – not to mention how much that term is used to sell you on corporate sponsored indie brunch playlists. But for The Landmarks, I think you can interpret it as more than a joke. Indie pop, indie rock, indie whatever – it doesn’t really matter. The group is willing to embrace whatever sounds they need to execute their zealous musical vision. To get what I mean, you need not look further than their latest EP, Mythological Future/s?!, out this Friday, May 4.

The five songs on this EP exemplify the band’s broad ambitions with a healthy dose of psychic energy to hold it together. Opener “Cruisin’” careens into view like the Star Destroyer at the beginning of Star Wars: A New Hope – slowly crawling across your view before finally covering everything in its overwhelming totality. Except instead of destroying you, The Landmarks are engulfing you with danceable, new wave hooks and ‘00s New York rock pastiche. And just when you get into the groove, The Landmarks show some of the venom they’ve been hiding in their fangs with “RcR;” a brilliant mind-meld of modern psychedelia and almost gothic undertones in the reverb-heavy vocals that fades exquisitely into the cryptic swoon of “Halloween Sex.”

When asked to describe the album, the band provided a quote from writer and mythologist Joseph Campbell that inspired the title: "Out of the confines of all local histories and landscapes… Some notion of the whole profoundly conceived." I’ll be honest and say initially I had no idea what that meant about the record. But in the context of “indie blah blah” and the abstract title of the EP, some light is (maybe) shed. The Landmarks wholeheartedly embrace the notion of giving themselves no limits. If there’s not a genre they fit in, they’ll carve a space out for themselves. The five songs on this EP sprint by fast, jump between different musical realms, and yet there’s some “notion of the whole” at play as each song builds off the last. It’s a forward thinking approach that the band is hoping to turn from myth to reality. Based off these recordings, it seems that they’re well on their way.

Stream the EP in full below.

Related News & Reviews

KEXP Premiere

High Sunn Pens a Summer Soundtrack Full of Crushes and Heartbreaks with Missed Connections (KEXP Premiere)

Prolific 18-year-old songwriter Justin Cheromiah emerges with his most fully realized work yet, full of all the teenage emotions you'll ever need.


Read More
KEXP Premiere

Eternal Summers Summon the Strength to be Hopeful on Every Day It Feels Like I’m Dying (KEXP Premiere + Q&A)

The Virginia indie rock outfit looks inward at their own anxieties and emerges with a record full of hope, love, and blissful guitar hooks.


Read More
Local Music KEXP Premiere

Julia Massey Talks New Band Warren Dunes, Shares "Come Find Me" (KEXP Premiere)

Whether she’s wearing a feather mask during a KEXP in-studio or making what she calls “kids music for adults,” Massey and her band mates have treated their audiences to songs that are good for the spirit, no matter your age.


Read More
KEXP Premiere

Take a Trip with New Vox Mod Single "Chronosthesia" (KEXP Premiere)

KEXP premieres a new track from Seattle electronic project Vox Mod, off the forthcoming full-length Sense of Us.


Read More
KEXP Premiere

Dr. Dog Finds Power with Peace on Latest LP Critical Equation (KEXP Premiere)

The Philadelphia band's new album drops this Friday, April 27 via Thirty Tigers.


Read More
KEXP Premiere Record Store Day

Wussy Are 'Getting Better' on Their Record Store Day Covers EP (KEXP Premiere)

KEXP presents an exclusive stream of Wussy's Getting Better covers EP, out this Saturday for Record Store Day.


Read More