Living Ever After - inept

Living Ever After

Inept
self-released; 2014

3.1 out of 5

By Ted Rogen

Living Ever After is a band from Denmark comprised of Troels Damgaard (vocals, guitars, bass, drums and keys) and Mikkel Fin (drums, guitars, vocals). They recently released Inept, which sounds more like a demo that they can shop around until they get something of better quality. 

Inept contains six songs that display a young band experimenting with shoegaze to the best of their abilities. The most apparent influence here is My Bloody Valentine. Living Ever After have some solid ideas and shows a lot of promise from the band but the quality of the recording on Inept takes away from the impact these songs could have had. It sounds like they recorded the band live with a mic or two. The songs, which are full of white noise, distortion and all the other staples of shoegaze can’t be contained by the underwhelming production. 

The first track “Glockster” is packed with a number of moments that display a band with some talent. It starts off with a frantic tom roll and distorted guitars as the vocalist sings something. I had no luck understanding a word he was saying. They switch up the timing and introduce a backward sounding guitar effect, which sounded similar to something you would hear from Kevin Shields’ guitar.

“Free Space Demon” was arguably the best sounding song on Inept while “Grandmas” is a hard rocking song, which has a vocal melody that is downright catchy. “Inept Colliders” is basically unlistenable because of what sounds like digital cracks that pierce your ears and are louder than the music itself. They close with” Losing My Head For You,”  which is a distorted piece of music that is a highpoint for the band.

If the band is serious about taking their music to the next level the first thing they are going to have to do is find a producer/engineer to implement their ideas in a recorded format. Second, they borrow a bit too much from My Bloody Valentine. Don’t get me wrong I’m happy it’s My Bloody Valentine and not Nickleback but the influence is overt to the point that they will draw criticism. Living Ever After’s Inept is a case of wait and see. 

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