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Fairweather strikes a moving target

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fairweather If They Move…Kill Them

The strength of any given genre lies within the originality and variety of the bands that compose it. Grunge held artists as disparate as Nirvana, Soundgarden and the Smashing Pumpkins. Early punk held the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. However, what has become the neo-punk/emo revolution of the past few years for many bands is an exercise in homogeneity, each act basically indistinguishable from the last. If one emo band is particularly exemplary of this, it is Washington D.C.’s Fairweather.

Fairweather’s debut release, If They Move …Kill Them is a strong effort in the vein of neo-punk. It’s just too bad that some of the torchbearers for the genre, namely Saves the Day and the Juliana Theory, have already released their hybrids of If They Move … Kill Them before Fairweather got a chance.

The unaware listener would swear that Fairweather was Saves the Day — the vocal style and overall tone is that similar. On slower songs Fairweather is more similar to the Juliana Theory, particularly on tracks like “South Street, 1 a.m.” and “Welcome to Last Year.”

This is not to say that the worth of the album is diminished by the striking similarities to other artists. In fact, the record is pretty damn good and succeeds in all the places that Saves the Day and the Juliana Theory have, while leaving behind their flaws.

Lyrically, Fairweather effectively rocks the relationship angle, using packed sentences like, “I’m sorry if you feel that I owe you something/ Sorry, what can I do for you?” If They Move … Kill Them isn’t breaking any new ground, but that’s clearly not the point. It’s just a good little record any fan of the genre can easily embrace.

As the band continues to grow we can hope that Fairweather carves out a more apparent bend in the watered-down genre, leaving behind some of the more cliché emo earmarks (semi-desperate vocals, distortion as emphasis), while staying true to its sound. And with a strong and cohesive album behind it, as well as the support of East Coast punk label Equal Vision, we can expect just that.