I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope

One listen to the album I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope, and it’s clear that these two know their Braid from their Converge. When they were really young, not just relatively young as they are now (Todd’s eighteen, William is twenty), they both used to play in hardcore/ punk bands. They could easily have fine-tuned their sound into the anemic drivel that passes for emo nowadays, but instead they did what they felt was right. And something very special started happening. Their wistful, atmospheric synth pop is full of scattered sounds and dreams, undulating keyboards, superhuman drums and a fragile yet optimistic melancholy that underpins it all. They’ve created a record that’s by equal measures vulnerable but punk rock, pop yet prog.

Todd’s lyrics are subtle, understated open-heart confessions that delve into him, but transformed by their musical context, become something else, something bigger, something universal that everyone can relate to. “It’s always been that way, since I first started writing songs at eleven or twelve, ”he explains. “It’s all personal stuff, I don’t think I will ever write about someone else’s situations. I mean, I’ll write in the third person, but I’ll never be able to write songs that aren’t about me, because I’m too involved. All of them were to do with how I am and how I view things and they still are.”