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Apr 15, 2015 Quarterbacks By Scott Dransfield

Quarterbacks are pretty easy to pin down within 30 seconds of their debut album: rough-strummed electric guitar chords, nonchalant tenor vocals, and thundering, barely-controlled drumming—all played as fast as possible. Quarterbacks consists of 19 tracks, none of which surpasses the two-minute mark (and many are under a minute). There’s barely a bridge to be found, let alone a repeated chorus.

It may be hard to pick out each song from the others because they go by so quickly, but what Quarterbacks do, they do very well. The lyrics all revolve around infatuation and love, especially in the teenage years. “I wanna be the last boy to love you,” frontman Dean Engle sings about halfway through the album’s brisk 22 minutes. Later, he describes an evening sitting on a love seat with a crush, completely nervous about kissing her. Most of the experiences detailed in these songs are easy to identify with (especially if the listener is an American who attended high school—what would you expect from a band called Quarterbacks?), even if the resulting songs seem a little slight and shallow.

The narrow focus, while preventing any real depth, is also Quarterbacks’ biggest strength. The album’s brevity reinforces the impression that these songs were written quickly, based on fleeting thoughts through a teenage brain. “I don’t have a life plan, I just have this little band/Simple songs with simple chords/But simple songs won’t save your soul,” sings Engle, sounding totally psyched that this is all his life has to be. Listening to Quarterbacks, it’s pretty easy to feel that way, too. (www.quarterbacks.bandcamp.com)

Author rating: 7/10