Sometimes I wonder how many people underestimate the breadth of the Great Lakes in America’s Midwest (Canada too — if I don’t bring it up Rob will see me punished). Until you see it in person, you almost can’t believe the enormity of these bodies of water. You can’t begin to fathom (intended) the depth. When the time comes and you manage to dip your toes into Lake Michigan on a warm day in June you’ll find yourself stunned by how fucking cold it is. 

Sometimes we just don’t know until we experience something in the proper context. To date, I’ve listened to the latest track, “You Won!” From Wisconsin’s All Done Bye Bye, an absurd number of times. On repeat. I’ve come to know and feel the nuance within this track after repeated listens, and all the subtle tricks that really pop inside a pair of headphones. 

All Done Bye Bye is a veritable who’s who of the Wisconsin DIY scene, featuring Kyle Kinney from Excuse Me, Who Are You?, Jasmine Rosenblatt from Bug Moment, Dylan Mazurkiewicz of Garden Home, Alan Morris from Endswell, and Brady Laflen of Thumbs Up Records. With a lineup this deep I know you’re itching to get into some tasty, twinkly riffs meshed with some of the anthemic screamo influenced brand of post-hardcore, and if those were your expectations, they’d come crashing back to reality pretty quickly.

All Done Bye Bye play a brand of atmospheric, shoegaze-leaning emo. Jasmine’s vocals are dreamy and ethereal, and they’re backed by Dylan’s wretched screams, sitting quietly in the mix. Guitars are, at times, airy, laden with reverb, delay, and granular effects, and at other times, fuzzy and distorted, lending themselves to the mix. The drums and bass keep the tracking moving forward, a distinguishing part of the track as it oscillates back and forth between the dream-like ambience and something that nods to the up-tempo post-hardcore efforts of other co-existing projects.

“You Won!” opens with this washed out, ambient guitar that has this fantastic sounding synth-like pad that blends and smears those picked notes. Jasmine’s vocals hit alongside fuzzed out yet jangly guitar chord riffing. She sings, does it make you you happy seeing me in pain? All you want to do is spread your hate. The guitars ring out momentarily, before the subtlest of screaming hits your ears. This is a sonic theme throughout the track. So frequently there is this pain beneath the seraphic, floaty singing. These panicked screams from Mazurkiewicz lending themselves so well to the track.

The chorus of the track keeps the steady tempo, with lines being traded back and forth. Here we see the band abandoning some of the subtle screaming for clean vocals and it meshes well. When the bridge ends we have a return to the opening riff before coming back strong into the chorus. The subtle screaming returns, the clean-on-clean vocals sit nicely upfront as the instrumentation delivers pummeling blow after blow, in what is offered as the band at their heaviest. 

I talked earlier about underestimating, and that’s precisely what I did with this track the first few times I listened. On my first few listens I thought I was ready to move on. I thought the vocals, celestial as they were, may have been too up front for me. Turns I’m out I’m just a big fucking dummy.

This track has depth. I was woefully ignorant of the powerful riptide this track possessed. Seriously, don’t be silly, put your headphones on and revel in the beautiful instrumentation the band deliver, and give a nod to the mixing and production done by Simon at Tunnel Of Reverb (whose choice to drop ambient-in-a-box pedals like the MOOD and Microcosm onto the track REQUIRES you to listen in headphones, seriously).

If you need a contemporary artist that you can say, alright, I like that band, I can give this a shot, then I’ll point you toward Holy Fawn — that said, All Done Bye Bye swerves into emogaze with pop sensibilities, keeping some of the heavier leaning riffs at bay (for now). It’s been a pleasure listening to this track, and I’m ready to get pulled beneath the waves of All Done Bye Bye with whatever comes next.