Excuse Me, Who Are You?- Double Bind | Album Review

There are some bands that use samples to create a fun little bit of ambiance within their music or to provide a little bit of a vibe switch—and then there are bands who base their entire album around sampling and use it as an integral piece of world building within their work. Excuse Me, Who Are You? (EMWAY) are one of those groups who have made a career out of using sampling from properties to add an additional dimension to their music. In their debut EP About That Beer I Owed Ya they sampled heavily from Half Life and in their debut LP Double Bind they have drawn from the 1997 anime film Perfect Blue—going as far to take the title of the album directly from the film-within-a-film from the Satoshi Kon classic.

Double Bind sees EMWAY perfecting their brand of Wisconsin screamo and taking their songwriting craft to a whole new level. One thing that immediately stands out on Double Bind is the unmistakable guitar tone from Stuart Benjamin that is as distinct to this band as the emotional wails that Kyle Kinney almost croons across each track. This album is full of some of the tightest riffs and the basslines from Jackson Pertzborn are transcendent. All these riffs are smashed out over some of the best drumming you’ll come across this decade from Hayden Johnson. This band is the exact perfect line-up at the exact perfect time to create a moment in music that will launch them to the stratosphere—however, it is not only because of incredible musical talent that this band thrives but also because of the sheer amount of emotion that pours out of every word, scream, riff, bash of the drums, pluck of the bass, etc. EMWAY seeks to make you do more than just move with this record they seek to make you feel and I am happy to say that they succeed in their endeavors.

The album begins with the track “EMWAY?” and it has a sample of the line “Excuse me, who are you” from Perfect Blue playing over a riff that builds to a breakdown that kicks off with a powerful yell from Kinney.  This song sets up the lore of the album nicely as almost a spiritual successor to About That Beer I Owed Ya while also acting as the perfect introduction to the band. This song when I first listened to it had me believing I could run through a brick wall and picturing all the wall of death pits that will come out of the live performance of this song.

“Maybe That Truck Hit me… And This Is All A Dream” is the second track and this one has a feature from Tyler Stodghill of Iowa based band Stars Hollow. This song sees the two vocalists going back and forth over lyrics surrounding a broken relationship where you are with someone that you want to be with so badly, but it will never work. Lyrics like “If I counted all the fucking times/I laid awake all alone/with you by my side” and “Think of you, need a cigarette” hit like the eponymous truck. The vocals on this track are perfect for the subject matter and you can feel the vitriol and pain in each lyrical wail. Whether you’ve been in this type of romantic situation or not—the performance on this track will hurt you emotionally in all the best ways.

The following track “Curses!! I’ll Get You Next Time, Powertron!” it begins with a riff that is very similar to the beginning of the prior previous song that plays after another little sample from Perfect Blue. This song acts as an incredibly strong two-minute track highlighting the feeling of being the one who lived. What are you supposed to do with the memories after you lose something or someone? Are you supposed to just take it and throw it away or are you supposed to hold onto it? These are the thoughts I have when I hear this song and hear lines such as “You’re survived by me/and I am nothing”. There are many emotional highlights on this album for my money this is highest light.

Next up we have https://mimasroom.com and this song is a decided departure from the usual EMWAY style as screams are eschewed for melodies and soft vocals that are backtracked by wails from Kyle. The music is gentle and is pushed over the top with a feature from Montana band Hey, Ily. This track is two different styles of music blending in a way that is just special. This song also features what feels like a callback to EMWAY’s hit “Chicken Cock” with Kyle screaming, “I think about it all the time/I think about you all the time” which as lyrics are focal points of the EP track. This song is perfect for when you are sitting alone in the dark and thinking about how you ended up where you are in life. More than once I have listened to this track out on my balcony looking out at the asphalt and the cracks and wondering how they got there.

EMWAY follows this departure with a song that feels so quintessentially EMWAY in “Volcano Balls” which has a feature from another Wisconsin band Tiny Voices. This song is a ripper and once again confronts themes of loss but this time it looks at it from a lens of appreciation of someone making you who you are, even after you’ll never see them again. Ben Ludens of Tiny Voices adds a lot to this track with a buttery smooth vocal bridge that carries the song through to its concluding breakdown, as well as laying down some screams on the second verse. This song shows that as much as EMWAY can be looked at as the masters of sampling, it can not be understated what they do with features on this album. They make use of some amazing existing relationships across the Wisconsin music scene, and the fact that many of the bands they partner with share members, and then add in Hey, Ily to create some special things.

The final stretch of the album begins with “<3” which is an instrumental track that acts as an interlude as well as a little bit of world building within the album as EMWAY draws further from the film that they got their name from. The emoticon heart being the title is as appropriate as the first track being called EMWAY. This album almost acts as an introduction and in many ways that little heart is as much a part of the name as the acronym.

The penultimate song is the title track “Double Bind” and has a feature from another Wisconsin unit in Endswell (of which Kyle is a guitarist). The added vocals from Maxwell Culver are the perfect thing to tie the track together. This song pulls together many of the darker themes that EMWAY includes in their new album. This song feels like the heart of the album where everything comes together before one last hurrah. This whole album is dark and heavy in a lot of ways, but this song may just be the one that hurts the most. The song has direct references to death, binge drinking, and giving up entirely. It is heavy but it shows just what this band is capable of. If there is a track on this album that I was to say you MUST listen to its this one. The song also ends with another sample from Perfect Blue that comes as the film-within-a-film is wrapped and it perfectly punctuates a song that embodies what this album is about.

The closing track on any album in my mind is sacred and needs to send off the audience on some form of special note and EMWAY goes above and beyond with “Let’s End All This”. This song is destined to be an absolute live hit. I can picture swarms of sweaty people stopping in the middle of a mosh pit to yell “Bury me with all my friends”. However, the song is so much more than a belter for audiences around the world. Most of this album is about loss and coping with it, but sometimes the thing that hurts you the most is yourself and how the hell can anybody live through that and EMWAY tackles this head on with one of the strongest and most concise verses put to paper. The feeling tears through you as you hear the music pull back as Kyle screams “I’m a victim of myself”. EMWAY doesn’t just stop there in this song they also cover the concept of having friends that only exists to use you and eventually everyone will hate you—so the only solution is to have it all end. It’s an incredibly heavy topic to cover but EMWAY manages to do it in a way that feels perfect for the world that they’ve built in their music.

Double Bind overall is an incredible album that seems EMWAY at their best. They have eschewed a lot of the jokes and memey references that littered their previous EP and put together an album that feels like a storm, and hits like one too. This band is set for stardom and on this record, they reach a whole new level of artistry and master a craft they had long since perfected in their use of samples. I will never forget the first time I heard this record, and I don’t think I ever will. This band has done something incredibly special and I know I say that a lot, but what is on display here is incredible. Every single aspect of every track sound like it was agonized over and it all oozes emotion. There are zero wasted notes, breaths, or words across the runtime that extends around 20ish minutes. This album will stand tall as one of the greatest albums of the 2020s, and I am glad that I got to be around to hear it.

If you are wanting to catch EMWAY at a show they will be playing Pugfest in Ferndale, Michigan and they will also be playing at Excellency Fest in August.

Double Bind Is releasing via Thumbs Up Records and further information on the Excuse Me, Who Are You? can be found at https://linktr.ee/emway