Remo Drive - “All You’ll Ever Catch”

SXSW 2024 - OEB Score: 9; Popularity Index: 7

Pairs Well With…Arctic Monkeys, The Front Bottoms, The Mountain Goats

Remo Drive released album number four last week and Mercy sounds like an entirely different band from their breakout debut released seven years ago. What was a band steeped in hardcore and emo forms is now dealing in cinematic folk pop, crooning along to lush acoustic and electric instrumentation. The most wild thing is both disparate approaches are keenly constructed and full of personality. Listening through Remo Drive’s catalog in progression shows the band making changes step by step to eventually find themselves in this wholly new space. While the middle of their career path can sound muddy, and in retrospect transitionary, the endpoints of debut Greatest Hits and Mercy are fully realized. While this latest record puts lush beauty at the forefront, there’s still some punk bite deepening a cinematic palette. It feels like Remo Drive is a band that has dropped from many radars after misses on album two and three, but Mercy is an excellent listen and an intriguing revitalization of the Minneapolis brothers’ sound. (Kevin McStravick)