It took a few decades for Midwest emo to grow up, but that long-awaited maturity resounds in the sludgy shoegazed guitar tones of Your Mom’s House by Park National, which still delivers the visceral ache of emotions pouring out into a world that is all too ready to distort them with dissonance. But the cultivation on display that carves its way through the locked-on emotive target overdriven guitar tones elevates this anthem of ennui to the nth degree.
With one of the strongest guitar solos I’ve ever heard in emo-adjacent territory paired with the sheer striking sensibility of Your Mom’s House, which delivers the pained refrain of “just because I can’t love myself, doesn’t mean I can’t love you”, it is no surprise that Park National is amassing followers like there’s no tomorrow with the smorgasbord of resonance he distills into his vignettes.
Park National is the project of Chicago’s Liam Fagan, who broke through in 2020 with the self-produced The Big Glad, a record soaked in coming-of-age angst and serrated emo-pop textures. He’s now barrelling into new sonic territory with You Have to Keep Searching, a lo-fi-flecked, fuzz-soaked, genre-warping body of work that serves as a conduit for catharsis and chaos in equal measure. Guided by a DIY ethos and unflinching introspection, Fagan’s evolution is anything but obscure.
Your Mom’s House is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.
Review by Amelia Vandergast
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