In 2019, “emo from Long Island” and “Long Island emo” are two very different things. Over the last few years, the classic poison-pen-valentine sound has slowly commingled with the bookish, bashful indie rock that was once seen as its antidote in the era of Fuse video blocks. While Oso Oso’s Basking In the Glow remains the most brilliant example, you can also hear it in the extended universe of associates and peers that has sprung up around Jade Lillitri. Guitarist and Yunahon Mixtape producer Billy Mannino released a strong debut this year as Bigger Better Sun, while Lillitri’s former State Lines bandmate Tom Werring bowed with Yeah Is What We Have; both drew on Death Cab and Teenage Fanclub more often than the Starting Line or Taking Back Sunday.
Macseal is the project of singer-songwriter Ryan Bartlett, but the Lillitri EU extends here as well—the band’s Francesca Impastato once served as Oso Oso’s touring drummer. Unlike Werring and Mannino, who more or less arrived fully formed, Bartlett on Super Enthusiast sounds stuck in the middle road, trying to summon the confidence to change lanes. This problem is hardly exclusive to Macseal—as with alt-country, grunge, and shoegaze in earlier years, power-pop is emo’s exit strategy du jour, and just ask longtime Joyce Manor fans what they think of Barry Johnson getting into Big Star. Turns out that power-pop and emo aren’t instantaneously compatible—emo is driven by anxious, imperfect musicianship where the former prides itself on being finicky and clever, emotional distance often proof of a sense of craft. Macseal prove to be adept students, as evidenced by the cascading melodic resolution in “Graduating Steps” or the beaming falsetto lines neatly layered like rainbow Jello on “Without a Trace.” Against the kind of meandering verse melodies that typified Macseal’s earliest work, the pop classicism here is endearing and jarring.
As he did with Wild Pink’s Yolk in the Fur, producer Justin Pizzoferrato exfoliates a once-scruffy band for proper mainstream presentation and otherwise trusts the songwriting to provide the dynamic frills. But while “Always Hazy” and “Irving” could safely blend into the latest All New Indie Spotify list, they can just easily pass by without any kind of impression. Both songs are victims of Bartlett not completely trusting himself. There’s a discernible emotional core in each—a coming of age, a realization of failure—but both are obscured by lyrics that sacrifice clarity and concision to read nice on paper. “What’s clear to me, has always been hazy,” he sings—an unintentionally meta moment.
However, the late-autumn crispness of the sound (and its early November release date) is no accident. Super Enthusiast addresses life from a standpoint where the afterglow of summer or graduation has long faded and the reality of “Where do I go from here?” has set in. “They reserve a special kind of defeat/For when your new home spits you back to old/They expect a swift and solemn retreat/Back to the hole that you first crawled out of,” Szilagyi moans on “Graduating Steps,” an earnest show of empathy for boomerang kids who watch friendships fade, people outgrow each other, and nostalgia become a trap. If “Graduating Steps,” like much of Super Enthusiast, feels like it’s stopping shy of conveying the kind of energy suitable for its youthful milieu, notice that it’s describing a special kind of defeat—a point where anger gives way to surrender. If Super Enthusiast seems hamstrung with uncertainty about Macseal’s next phase, that’s pretty much the entire point.
Buy: Rough Trade
