Album Review :: Soundtrack to Sleep :: East Coast Anxiety

Written by: Andrea Janov, CC2K Music Editor

Soundtrack to Sleep :: East Coast Anxiety

Soundtrack to Sleep’s East Coast Anxiety is a 4 track EP that feels so much more robust than 4 songs. It is raw, natural, intimate, and messy in all the right ways. They are self described emo/shoegaze, but every track on East Coast Anxiety is way too full of emotion to fall into the shoegaze category, these songs will have a pit going.

The first track, All We Do Is Talk, is catchy, yet not at all. It is emo but not weak and it’s lyrics perfectly capture a breakup “the words were on my tongue but they all sounded so wrong / so I slipped back into silence- put them back where they came from /I wish that I could say something like, / “hey I hope there’s no hard feelings” / maybe it’s too soon”.

In Green Mountains, there is a a wonderful disconnect between the music and the vocals. It is so beautifully chaotic. Riverrun crosses into the screamo realm, which turns out is a term that has fallen out of fashion since the late 90s, but fuck it, I am using it here.

East Coast Anxiety, this song is 100% screamo. It is pure unrestrained emotions through strained vocals. The track starts off slow, then builds to the screaming. This EP is full of great lyrics, but this song contacts one that I just can’t get out of my head, “how did we get here? we’re all empty bodies in the same room”. I just love all of the implications that it has.. This track is just over 5 minutes. Daring for a punk band. Good move. I am a fan, Love it.

East Coast Anxiety is an album full of pent up emotion, just exploding in a beautifully raw way and we get to listen to it’s musical form. Sorry, but to me, it is everything, but shoegaze.