Two Tongues - Two Tongues

Two Tongues - Two Tongues

So what happens when you take two of the biggest bands of the 2000's emo/indie rock scene and throw them in one band? Glorious magic, that's what. Two Tongues is the side project and collaboration between Saves The Day and Say Anything, two giants in their own right. Taking front man Max Bemis and Chris Conley combining vocal efforts and guitar work, bassist Dave Soloway, and drummer Coby Linder, into basically a super group, Two Tongues debut album is everything fans would expect and more.

When you do combine such talent and such big names like Conley and Bemis it's easy to imagine that one would over power the over or that they would both pull away from each other, trying to be the larger voice. However this is the furthest from the truth, both compliment each other perfectly in every way. On it's own I tend to find Conley's voice, in this era in particular, to high and whiny, it annoys after a while. In this album Bemis's voice seems to underline the high notes of Conley coming off as one cohesive sound. They really come off feeling like almost one person with just two different voices.

In terms of sound the album does go back and forth between sounding musically more like Say Anything and like Saves The Day. Songs like Crawl and Tremors would be right at home on a Say Anything album while songs like Wowee Zowee and Don't You Want To Come Home are more fitting of Saves The Day. There's also some interesting songs in particular the song Alice which songs more like a hard rock song out of the 90's in a good way. It's nice to see some experimentation to break away from either one their existing bands.

Rounding out the album are a few songs that sound like a perfect mesh between the two bands. Since this is a first effort the musical style is to be expected. The follow up, which has been in the works for years now, should show a more cohesive meshing of each style. The last two songs on the album have each front man covering the other. Interesting fact, this is not the first time Max Bemis has covered Saves The Day, the first being the song being Jessie And My Whetstone. Bemis does his take on the song Third Engine and Conley takes on Every Man Has His Molly. It's cool to hear it, but to me both fall a bit flat. Third Engine loses a bit of it's potency and Every Man Has His Molly goes from being an acerbic and sarcastic slight against a former lover to being more of a whining lament. 

This is huge album brimming with talent. It combines two huge bands into a blender and what comes out is a delicious smoothy of sound. Even when you ignore where the members come from this is still a solid album for the genre. The songs all work so well together, they're all catchy as hell. The lyrics are easy to relate to. Poppy and pulsing this album is proof that super groups can work and work well. Anyone with interest in either band or fans of the genre should pick this up without hesitation.