Youthless: Telemachy

Remember Youthless? Well, if you liked their demos, then you'll love to hear that they have an EP out!

I've always been perplexed by the art of songwritting. I'll admit that I've tried to create music, but let's face it, there doesn't need to be more awful music out there, and I certainly don't need to write it. So the fact that Youthless had only 10 days to write and prepare the whole EP and only 7 days to record it...well lets just say that Youthless is clearly nothing but amazing.

Not wanting to put their demo songs on the EP (don't worry, those tracks will most likely be on their first LP), the group decided to do a concept EP, Telemachy. Telemachy (which is what the first four poems of the Odyssey are collectively called) tells the story of Odysseus' son, Telemachus, who has been left behind in Ithaca waiting for his father and is trying to become a man/hero/king in his own right and protect his mother and home, so he sets off on a parallel journey to that of his father ...a rite of passage. Inspired by the themes of Telemachus, Youthless base their EP story on a coming of age theme. As drummer Alex Klimovitsky explains,

The son of a famous adventurer grows up fatherless but is raised on tales of his dad's heroic exploits. At age 14 he decides to set sail across the Pacific Ocean in search of his long lost father and in doing so he follows in his father's adventurous footsteps and slowly becomes a famous voyager in his own right. After many years of traveling he reaches the world's end and, upon crossing over, he discovers a land of all children. He finds his father, who has now become a boy, and the two become friends and settle down and make a home in the new land.

If you ask me, it's a pretty cool and thoughtful concept album. The lyrics on the EP, as Alex explained to me, are a captain's log of what goes through the boy's head as he travels. "In the Pacific" serves as a statement of the boy's intent, while "The Beasts" expresses his feelings towards his father for abandoning him, simultaneously idolizing his father and the realization that doing so, the boy also identifies with him too, essentially becoming the same animal, or "The Beast." Track three and four, or "In Motion" and "Travel N' Pieces" have more simple messages about the nomadic life and the boy's travels. "Out There" is about the end of the world and reaching the great horizon. And "I Guess" and "This Must Be the Place"end the EP and the boy's story, as he sees the new land and the children on the island, making his peace and finally arriving to a place that he can come call home.

Much to my amusement, at the end of his email to me Alex added, "The whole time we were recording the EP we were sleeping on the floor of the studio and going out and getting wasted and seeing bands play, so this balanced out some of the nerdy-ness behind the story."

I love these guys! Download their entire Telemachy EP HERE!