3 out of 5

Label: Robotic Empire

Produced by: Kellen Hamill (engineered by)

On the heels of Old Wounds, Young Widows recorded a 2009 radio show, released by Robotic Empire in 2010. Now, I never had the pleasure of seeing Young Widows live, but… subsequent recordings like this one and youtube offerings have suggested to me that, I dunno, maybe they weren’t great live? I’m sure Evan Patterson’s powerful vocal and the group’s penchant for deep bass and heavy drums would’ve made an impression, but there’s something about their relatively minimal style of punk / hardcore that comes across a little dim live – at least secondhand – lacking the clarified punch of studio recordings. The production on this job underlines that further by being a bit tinny, though that’s common enough for live recordings; perhaps more important is that you can hear all of the bits, and they’re leveled well relative to the sound.

The counterpoint for the above is: Breather Resist, the Deathwish-style punk of the Widows’ former incarnation, and the sound they somewhat carried over to their debut under this name, Settle Down City. While I don’t think that’s nearly as good of an album as Widows’ others, it probably translated better live, as shown by a couple selections from that, included here. Furthermore, as the set warms up, primarily onto the B-side of the album, the energy of the Breather Resist style – speed; more yelling; more noise – feeds into the Widows songs, which energizes the performances effectively, and absolutely makes them worth hearing.

We kinda split the difference on closer Swamped And Agitated, which starts off in the punkier territory, with the extended length of the song’s epilogue used to jam on it a bit differently than on album, which ends up segueing it moreso into Old Wounds’ sound… An interesting blend, but another underline of the shift between the approaches.