Jakartah

Vancouver, BC's Jakartah confidently cite obvious acts such as These Arms are Snakes and Fugazi as influences, but elsewhere, they've been called everything from driving indie rock to prog metal, and have even (really wrongly) been compared to the polished radio-core of Emery. It's easy to see why their categorization is such a guessing game ― on their debut album, Jakartah experiment with blending bottom-heavy metal bass and dual riffage, intentionally sloppy post-hardcore vocal melodies and enough effortless time changes to keep your inner emo kid on his toes, and usually, they do it all in one song. On highlight track "A Young Boy Forgets About Heaven," there's even a borderline pretty breakdown, and if it wasn't for the brooding minor key bed, these guys might have encountered some impulse Explosions in the Sky namedrops too. Some future self-editing could come in handy for the unnecessarily droning bits but in the meantime, Jakartah have produced an intriguing and, even with its potentially distracting smorgasbord of sounds, memorable debut.