Paper Tongues By Paper Tongues

You wouldn’t be wrong if you thought that a lot of modern music has become annoyingly personal to the artists that make it. Your lover left you. Your lover came back to you. Your lover left you again, for your best friend. Blah Blah Blah. A band that sings to inspire the masses is rather rare but in the newcomers from North Carolina, Paper Tongues, that’s what we’ve got.

Officially born in 2007, Paper Tongues developed out of a weekly jam session in Charlotte, NC that served as an outlet for musicians to play for the city’s homeless. The surroundings changed, but the inspiration never left as Paper Tongues developed their own funky musical style and went out on tour with the likes of Jet, Switchfoot and Flyleaf.

And now, after many months of speculation surrounding the release date, the band’s debut, self-titled album is finally available. The album is a ten-track powerhouse that, while containing one or two weaker spots, quickly makes its way up the list of best band debuts ever.

The three tracks that start off the album – “Trinity,” “For The People,” and “Ride To California” are a good summary of what Paper Tongues is about – soaring, anthemic club rock that lifts people up, brings them together, and gives them some really good sounds to dance to. “Ride To California,” the band’s first single, is particularly enjoyable with its raw, in-your-face-vocals from Aswan North and the fusion beat of rock and reggae that carries the song.

The next two songs might lose your attention a bit at first because they don’t hold as much energy as the first three, but “Get Higher” and “What If” will soon grow on you as you inevitably start to appreciate the sincerity of North’s vocals the more you listen to them.

Of all the tracks on the album, the middle ones are probably the weakest, with “Everybody” and “Strongest Flame” showcasing a more generic, less exciting side of the band. But luckily, the closing track “Rich And Poor” picks everything back up with a powerful fulmination about people’s actions worsening the gap between the rich and poor.

Overall, even though Paper Tongues has some weak spots, it’s an album that serves as an excellent introduction to a new band and sets the North Carolina septet out as a future musical force to be reckoned with.