{"id":7472,"date":"2013-08-06T16:20:14","date_gmt":"2013-08-06T16:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=7472"},"modified":"2013-08-06T16:20:14","modified_gmt":"2013-08-06T16:20:14","slug":"young-benjamins-less-argue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2013\/08\/06\/young-benjamins-less-argue\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Benjamins \u2013 Less Argue"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"young42\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Young Benjamins have quickly become one of the better-loved bands on the scene in Saskatoon.\u00a0Less Argue<\/em>, their debut full-length offering<\/a>, is loaded with enough likable tunes to help the uninitiated figure out why our friends to the west have so warmly embraced the group. Young Benjamins are not out to reinvent the wheel, but there are some twists to be found and the songs are generally honed well enough to keep from melting into derivative inanity.<\/p>\n

The band colours most of its songs with tricks from several pockets of the contemporary indie-folk tickle trunk: liberal dashes of violin throughout most tracks; the guileless vocal delivery of frontman Neusha Mofazzali makes it easy to understand all his words; and spacious arrangements on songs such as \u201cLess Argue,\u201d and \u201cCommon Thief\u201d heighten the impact of sweeping poppy choruses. They even include a song named after a Canadian town, and \u201cJasper, AB\u201d is a satisfying trip with an appealing new-wavey lead guitar line. The album also features a number of unusual tweaks in timing, which signals a rhythm section strong enough to impress without needing to scream for recognition.<\/p>\n

The group also seems very much at home with sparse songs: opener \u201cColonial Pt. 1 (You\u2019re Only 20)\u201d is the only track featuring lead vocals by multi-instrumentalist Veronique Poulin, and sets a moody tone that remains present just beneath the surface throughout the remainder of the album. \u201cGreen Eyes\u201d is a cavernous guitar-accompanied piece based on a Farsi poem penned by Mofazzali\u2019s grandfather. It is the shortest track on the album, and as close as it comes to feeling like a tease. (Dollartone, youngbenjamins.com<\/a>) Daniel Emberg<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Young Benjamins have quickly become one of the better-loved bands on the scene in Saskatoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[164,817,832],"class_list":["post-7472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-canadiana","tag-root-cellar","tag-saskatoon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}