Endswell – Keepsake | EP Review

Thumbs Up Records

I have often wondered if, in my 23 years of life, I would find myself feeling some sense of nostalgia. After all, I’m just a kid who grew up too quickly and never really got the chance to feel like they were a kid. How could I yearn for a simpler time if things were never that simple? It turns out the answer was contained within the new Endswell EP, Keepsake. The moment the first song came on and that sample from Ocarina of Time played, I was transported back to my childhood friend’s basement with its white walls, tattered leather couch, concrete floor, and long-forgotten pool table. Suddenly, I’m sitting there on that concrete floor, blowing on an N64 cartridge, getting ready to transport myself back into Hyrule once again. Although that kid had to grow up and go through this primordial hell we call existence. Endswell takes this feeling of childhood naivety fading into adulthood and bottles it up on their debut EP through percussive and riff-heavy tunes. 

For those who aren’t in the know, Endswell is something of a DIY supergroup from Madison, Wisconsin, comprised of guitarist Kyle Kinney (Excuse Me, Who Are You?), bassist Luke Ferkovich (Kule), and guitarist Louie Barlaw (Tiny Voices). Rounding this out, you have drummer Alan Morris (who also mixed and mastered the EP), and centerstage, you have vocalist Maxwell Culver at the heart of this project, delivering screams and emotional wails in equal measure.

Until the release of this EP early on in the summer, Endswell only had one song released: a single mix of “Heart Container,” which both acted as an introduction to the band and as proof of concept for the group while they honed this collection of music. Keepsake is made up of four different tracks, each approaching transitory ideas like growing up, moving on, experiencing loss, and weathering heartbreak. The themes are addressed through a mix of traditional singing and screamed vocals, all layered over intricate guitar parts. The riffs are consistently heavy and, in some ways, almost clash with the lyrics as they offer a danceable counterpoint to some of the harsher themes found in the songwriting. This dissonance creates an interesting conflict as you might find yourself compelled to dance, even as Culver is screaming lyrics like “I just feel like shit.” 

As I was listening to Keepsake, I kept finding myself drawn to the drumming, which I would argue is the best part of this EP. Musically, I will admit my knowledge of drum techniques and terminology is limited, but I am a rhythm dork, and I couldn’t help but get caught up again and again in these mesmerizing drum parts.

The EP begins with the title track, and the whole thing kicks off with that aforementioned sample from Ocarina of Time that plays whenever you open a chest in the game. This sample builds and then seamlessly blends as the guitars and drums kick in, and as the fanfare leads to post-hardcore riffage, you can practically see the pit opening. This song explores the theme of not being enough for someone, with the phrase “Keepsake” encapsulating the feeling of being a trinket thrown on a shelf and forgotten until someone cares to remember you. One of the stand-out lines in the song is, “I’m only as nostalgic as you make me / and I break easily.” At some point, we have all fallen in love with someone or something that didn’t give us that same love back, and this song captures that feeling in heartbreaking beauty.

If “Keepsake” is someone trying hard to hold onto something they love, then “Cruise Control” is learning to accept that, at some point, you have to walk away and give up on someone you once loved. The lyrics absolutely lock in on this theme as Culver wails out the lines, “Sometimes the people you know / become strangers you love / become people you wish / you never knew at all.” We are all cursed with forcing ourselves to forget the people we once shared our lives with. Sometimes, we have to watch someone change and become different from the person we initially met, and it hurts. The song handles this nuance very well, with an almost nostalgic feeling baked into the guitars, adding to the dissonance between the music and lyrics. 

The penultimate track of the EP is a new rendition of “Heart Container.” The biggest difference between the single mix and the EP version is that there is a stronger sense of production that makes the song fit in better sonically with the rest of the tracks on this release. The mix also features more of a focus on the guitars and puts the vocals a little lower in the mix, which creates a nice wall of noise. It almost feels like Culver is drowning in the sea of sound and loss as he yearns for things to be what they once were. This track exists as the mid-point of the release and quickly grabs the listener’s attention with another Ocarina of Time sample that perfectly sets up the most energetic and angry song on the EP.

The final track, “Spirit Blues,” is an anthem about trying to be better, whether successful or not (and mostly not), knowing that you at least tried. This is the acceptance song that can only come after experiencing all the strife found throughout the preceding tracks. Whether you like it or not, eventually, you have to admit to yourself that you are going to die, and so will the things in your life. At some point, that kid playing those video games on the concrete floor in the basement has to turn off the old CRT and walk upstairs into the real world. Things won’t ever be perfect, and most of the time, they’ll never be what you wanted, and that just has to be okay. 

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Ben Parker is an emo kid from a small town in Indiana who has spent a little too much time reflecting on life. Ben is a poet and has written about topics ranging from death to addiction to that feeling when you meet someone, and once you part, you realize you’ll never speak again. Ben can be found at @Benyamin_Parker on all social media.

Endswell and Excuse Me, Who Are You? – Twins in Wisconsin Screamo

Thumbs Up Records

Something they don’t tell you about music writing is how often you wind up saying the same thing. I try not to use the same phrase multiple times within one article, but I’ve absolutely written the word “propulsive” more than any normal person should. As a writer, though, you have a box of tools, some of which you break out more often than others. 

I suppose a good writer would learn to recognize those tropes and avoid them, but me? I lean into them. Some descriptors are just objectively true, no matter how cliched they sound. Shoegaze music is dreamy. Pop-punk music is sunny. Who am I to pan through a thesaurus to find a synonym when common parlance is right there? Would I rather get my point across easily, or do I want to make my audience Google a word just so I can sound smart while still saying the same thing?

My point is I know my own writing style well enough to know what words I gravitate towards. Especially when you focus on a genre of music as specific as emo, there are only so many words you can use to talk about these sounds.

Despite its odd time signatures and youthful vigor, emo music is often very predictable. This is a genre that cribs from itself constantly. There’s a pantheon of great artists that most younger artists revere, and lots of the current music (both good and bad) stems directly from that inspiration and reinterpretation. Most of the time, you know where an emo song is going before it even gets there. You know the turmoil; you grow to expect the instrumentation. After long enough, you might even become immune to the zany pop culture clips that bands deploy to punctuate a particularly sick riff. If I’m being honest with myself, I have an insatiable appetite for this shit. And that’s why I’m here.

This predictability is also what makes it so exhilarating when a band does something unexpected within this format. 

I’ll admit, this was a lot of bullshit lead-up to say that “Heart Container,” the first official song from the screamo project Endswell, is a phenomenal piece of music. It’s a track that mixes emo and post-hardcore in pretty equal measure and also makes me want to bust out every word that I tend to reach for when talking about this genre. 

The track opens with an iconic Ocarina of Time soundbite as we hear our old, annoying friend Navi shout a phrase every 90s kid and Zelda fan knows all too well, “HEY! LISTEN!” Immediately after this Pavlovian call to attention, a snappy drum beat cracks through the song. Seconds later, a tappy guitar joins in with fractal, spiky sounds straight out of the math rock playbook. 

For a moment, I can hear ripples of all my favorite late-2000s post-hardcore bands. Endswell sound like a group whose demo I would find while cruising MySpace, then see signed to Sumerian or Equal Vision a couple of years down the line. 

When I think about seeing this song performed live, I imagine shouting along to the strained Stars Hollow-esque screams over the needly guitarwork and ear-shattering bass drops. In an alternate timeline, I could practically see myself listening to this song over my blown-out Honda Civic’s speakers slotted between Blessthefall and the demo for Skies of December. 

(Editors Note: if you understood that last reference, please message me immediately, I need someone to bond with over Skies of December)

Adjacent to the awesome progressive post-hardcore screamo of Endswell is a Midwest emo band called Excuse Me, Who Are You?. The two projects share members, resulting in a Venn diagram of sounds that overlaps a decent amount, but still retains some key distinctions that make each project unique. 

Both of these bands are based out of Madison, Wisconsin, a state that, between Bug Moment, Tiny Voices, Honey Creek, and Barely Civil, seems to be massively exciting right now. At the epicenter of this upper-Midwest emo pop-off is Thumbs Up Records, a small-run DIY label that’s been around since 2020 and touts itself as the “Home of the Riff Mafia.” 

Technically, Excuse Me, Who Are You, and Tiny Voices are the only bands on that above list actually signed to the label. With Endswell joining their ranks this February (and new music teased for later in the year), it seems like a good time to put all your DIY stocks in Thumbs Up Records. 

But back to the music of EMWAY, the other, slightly more emo side of the Endswell coin. The band only has four songs out right now (technically five if you count a standalone rendition of the EP’s closing track), but essentially, the band’s entire body of work exists in full on the 12-and-a-half minute About That Beer I Owed Ya. The Half-Life samples sprinkled throughout the EP might be easy to write off as arbitrary overly compressed soundbites, but to a gamer-ass dork like myself, when I first fired up the release and heard “Rise and shine, Mr. Freeman,” a jolt of decade-old nostalgia shot through my body like Frankenstein. 

The first song, “They’re Waiting For You Gordon,” even features guest vocals from Maxwell Culver of Endswell, pushing the two projects together to the point where they fuse into one. The band lets the tail end of the opening monologue from Half-Life 2 play out as the instrumental slowly brings things up to speed for a screamo rant over peppy guitar plucks that eventually snap into place and lash out in a coordinated attack with the other instruments. 

The middle two songs, “Chicken Cock” and “Urine Luck,” obviously don’t take themselves too seriously but tout equally impressive emo instrumentation, dramatic screams, and progressive hardcore breakdowns. At one point, I remember hearing the classic “Emo WOO!” and opening my Spotify app to grab a screenshot. I sat there for a moment staring at my screen as I took in the nostalgic Polaroid-like album art perched above the words “Urine Luck” and “Excuse Me, Who Are You?” I texted my partner a screenshot saying, “I think I found the most emo song/band/album art combination of all time.”

Emo is a genre rife with tropes and cliches. Its very name is a diminutive, dismissive short-hand almost meant to read “don’t take this seriously.” But I do take this seriously, and so does Excuse Me, Who Are You? The band uses video game samples and goofy song titles yet still displays real feelings and *clears throat* emotions throughout their four given tracks. The presentation may turn some away, but the music scratches a very real itch for me and arrives at a very earnest place. 

By the time the EP’s killer final track rolls around, I often find myself ready to revisit Endswell. This results in an endless feedback loop, where I remain (willingly) stranded in the same Wisconsin basement with these two bands. I just want to sit there, embedded in the crowd, sipping my beer and watching these musicians build off each other until the roads are clear enough for all of us to get home safely. We might be snowed in with these members of the Riff Mafia, but it’s nice. We have cold beer and sick tunes. Why would you wanna go anywhere else?