Heave Media

We Cry the Union Forever

The Union Trade offers a big sound on their second release

The Union Trade

Everyday Including

Released on Aug 05, 2008

On their MySpace page, the San Francisco group The Union Trade describe themselves as rock, shoegazer, and experimental.  Everything Including isn’t the exact definition of those post-rock genres but more of a fusion of all of them.  After their 2007 EP Now the Swell and a swell in popularity on the indie rock scene The Union Trade has refined their sound into something more emotion-heavy and vibrant.  The album is never too experimental and instead takes on a more poppy and conventional form of experimental music.  This doesn’t help or hinder Everyday Including.  It instead creates a more diversified album.  The track “Talk” has that laid back shoegazer sound to it, never pushing the tempo too much but full of echoing guitar solos.  It uses experimental elements that aren’t that uncommon in more progressive rock bands, such as ethereal undertones and spastic soloing.   

But there’s also this mainstream rock element to “Talk” that really calls forth comparison to the later work of Further Seems Forever.  Not so much in lyrics but more so in tone and tempo.  Perhaps it’s the fact that the Further Seems Forever album How to Start a Fire has re-entered my life but there are certain elements of it that are present in Everyday Including.  They both have this similar quality that’s both uplifting and hopeful, but without being too overly emotional to the point where it becomes a bad Dashboard Confessional album.  Even if the tone of a song may be a more melancholy than another, there’s still a more spirited approach to it. 

“Epic” may not be the most accurate word but Everyday Including has this grandiose sound to it that goes above and beyond a normal rock song.  “Strings Break” starts off softly and grows into this beautiful piece of music with voices softly singing “She likes the sound” over and over again.  It has this huge sound, which many of The Union Trade’s songs do on this album.  The only drawback of this huge sound is the slower tempo that comes with it.  The shoegazer genre often showcases slower, more pensive tempos but there’s still enough action within the song to make it not sound overly slow.  However this happens to some of the tracks on Everyday Including.  Many of the tracks stay within a certain time signature but don’t offer enough to make each as memorable as they should be.  Overall it makes Everyday Including a good album instead of a great one, but still a fantastic collection of impassioned songs made with real talent.

Posted by Amy Dittmeier on Jan 15, 2009 @ 9:00 am