The Unicorns - The Unicorns: 2014

Well, well, well.  Look who is back from the dead.

It's entirely possible that I say this because it was a big year for my own musical development, but I think a lot of people would agree with the statement that 2003 was an interesting year for indie rock.

Did your nose turn up at my use of that term?  Mine did, too.  Even using that phrase, "indie rock," dates me.  It's archaic and a misnomer for the music most alternative music "kids" are listening to today.  There are a couple of reasons for that.

First of all, music finance has changed dramatically in the past ten years.  Ask any teenager how they'd produce an album these days, and they'll probably tell you about Kickstarter.  If you're here, I don't have to remind you that budding musicians no longer view record labels as a necessity evil to production.  But it really wasn't that long ago that creative high schoolers (in North Carolina, at least) looked to Saddle Creek, Schoolkids, and Merge, as their main source of music.  When the Unicorns were at their height, on Alien8 Records, the internet was a BFD for hyping new releases.  But that was still a whole two years (what seems to be an eternity in tech) before Clap Your Hands Say Yeah would make waves for their self-released eponymous success.  

More importantly, though, is that "they just don't make indie rock like they used to."  As in . . . they don't really make indie rock anymore.  Not like the Unicorns, at least.  

Ok, ok, ok, "indie rock" hasn't died.  Even though it's 2014, there are a good number of Pavement knock-offs showing up in college radio rotations.  But you're lying to yourself if you think that teenagers and twenty-somethings are still searching for the sound that was nearly impossible to escape in 2003.  It's funny to me how annoyed I was by Le Tigre when I was fourteen, now I kind of wish I could find that style again.  Take a look at the stages of Bonnaroo or Coachella or whatever, our alternative darlings are simply less likely to brandish guitars in 2014 than they were in 2003.  Out with the shoe-gazing, in with the wompwompwompwomp, wompwompwompwomp, wompwompwompwomp.

So who took their place when they were gone?  Who are the Unicorns of 2014?

Basic instrumentation, genuine lo-fi, SOME quirk, dead space, but hold off on that lazy, precious affect and completely unremarkable vocal that characterizes a lot of the indie rock tracks I skim through these days ... anyone come up?

I don't have a good answer to this question.  What I can tell you is that I did not imagine that I would not encounter another band similar to the Unicorns.  I am also surprised that "cutsey" just ain't in in music like it once was.

Now, I'm older and wiser, and I'm sure they are too, but I'd be lying if I told you I'm not happy to hear them with this "new" track, even if it does sound straight out of Fall, 2003.