Hearing Aide: Living Room “New Years”

On Friday, 10 June, Brooklyn quartet band Living Room released their new album, New Years. After their growth in the last decade, the band performed their surprising leveling up in this album.

Living Room
Living Room


Based out of Brooklyn, Living Room is anchored by a decade-long friendship between their members, and now joined indie label Fear Icon Records. It has Scott Fitzpatrick and John Nicholls on guitar/vocals, Kevin Dobbins on bass, and Fred Trumpy on drums.

Influenced by late ’90s and early aught acts, Living Room released a rich discography that blends emo, shoegaze, and post-punk. Their discography displays their evolving and precise musicianship with lyrics that reflect the complexity, vicissitude, and euphoria of life.

The first powerful impression of this album is its strong sense of rhythm. Based on the intense drumbeats, “Mauve Frame” successful built a cheerful but absurd environment. And the drum is the spine to support the emotional storytelling from the lyrics and vocals.

Guitar and bass played an important role in performing their shoegaze style. The long and droning riffs in “Flood” expressed the shoegaze style of the band. This album widely used such sound in guitar and bass performing.

Stand out tracks like “Petrol Head” and “Flood” have big choruses that shine with the production work of Gary Cioni. Cooperated with the Scott and John’s vocal, the big choruses amplified the emotion embeded in the songs.

Lyrically the album used metaphor to express their feelings. Written by the two vocals, the lyrics told the feelings of romance and life experiences. “All I saw was the mauve frame. It all looked burnt orange to me. I’m sorry, it’s not funny. A world so colorful yet so boring”, they sang in the “Mauve Frame”, with the bright melodies reflected the loneliness in the song.

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