4 out of 5

Label: Beatville Records

Produced by: John Congleton

I can only imagine being so fortunate as to discover this back in 2000, and being perplexed by its complex piano and guitar proggish-punkness blended with hardcore bass and drum pummeling, linked with bizarre, circus-y and cinematic ambience, and the manic yowlps of John Congleton expressing fears and thoughts around death and life atop. Perplexed and, I sincerely think, given my tastes of the time, totally impressed: The Paper Chase’s first album is a loud one, almost too much at points – Congleton would start to learn to include space in his compositions a couple albums on – but it’s also miraculously poppy, and catchy, showing off the creator’s penchant for balancing intensity with accessibility that would make him a superstar producer in the 2010s and beyond.

But I didn’t discover this in 2000, instead winding my back through Paper Chase once falling in love with John’s additions to 90 Day Men‘s sound; by the time I would listen to this debut, I’d heard more sharpened versions of the PC sound. With which this album is absolutely in line, given the above lyrical themes and the general structure of isolated, sharp guitar notes against a booming low end. However, Young Bodies is also more messy than anything that follows, which makes the title feel fitting – the group bouncing back after shattering themselves across the relative chaos of this disc – and the cover art (ouch!) representative as well: everyone’s all-in at this point, with little thought for what follows.

That translates into a nervvy, exciting sound, which is also a downside: the album never stops moving, between its plinking piano keys and samples of speeches and answering machine messages, and though the album is sequenced into thematic sections, it almost feels a little too broad with this approach, trying to summarize life, death, and everything inbetween in slogans instead of lyrics, John not quite sure how personal or poetic to get.

Up through the next couple of albums, The Paper Chase sound is pretty intense, making a single listen of a disc quite an experience; Young Bodies has a youthful flailing that intensifies that even more. The skill, and creativity, of John and the crew, and still to-this-day completely unique sound that mixed terror with sing-song melody, absolutely make this a classic album that would be worth owning, regardless of what followed. But I’m glad we did get followups that helped to clarify the slight disconnect between the music and the listener on this disc; it really is an example of a group just getting better at what they were already doing really, really well from the start.