You Are Being Videotaped

Your Enemies Friends offer up a kind of post-hardcore/post-grunge-ish, high-energy guitar rock on You Are Being Videotaped; guitars are angular and distorted, basses pulse in a fuzzed tone, and drums hammer hard on the syncopation and backbeats. But, like many rock bands of the early 2000s, Your Enemies Friends sprinkle in a nice layer of keyboards on the bookends of You Are Being Videotaped. Your Enemies Friends seem to second-guess themselves in the middle of the record — almost showing that they can be varied and different and not giving in to their straight-up post-hardcore instincts, which makes for a bit of a schizophrenic listen. Though it has been said many times about many post-grunge bands, Your Enemies Friends have definitely listened to Nirvana records and/or Dave Grohl-related projects — the evidence lies in tracks like “Back of a Taxi,” “Columnist,” and “Unusual Signal.” The mathy, metal riffage of “Excommunication List” is definitely a highlight, with its nice, quirky noise and dissonance that eventually drop into a Brit-rock Pink Floyd-ish chillout. You Are Being Videotaped is a decent record that moves all over the distorted guitar rock map, but Your Enemies Friends always seem to find their way back to their influences — which could prove an interesting tool for furthering their future releases. – Francis Arres