Deep in the Illinois River Valley you’ll find a group of young men telling stories — stories of love and death and solace and revenge. They spread their tales in song, traveling from city to city reciting for anyone and everyone who will listen. These gentlemen will tell you such violent words and frenzied musical direction are simply part of the show, but rest assured, these boys are suave and deceitful; certainly befitting the quartet’s collective moniker, Flannel Mouth.
You’ll discover these men have been friends since childhood, living life’s trials and tribulations as comrades in arms and, specifically, music. Perhaps describing the boys at the time more so than the riffs they played, Flannel Mouth rooted themselves in punk rock, but soon thereafter trading their secondary school three-chord ditties in favor of more emotional and elaborate progressions and signatures. Auxiliary instruments became more necessary for the tones to be conveyed. Additional harmonies and chants surfaced as the breadth of the compositions widened. As a result, a company called SwitchBitch Records attached its namesake — a label, if you will — to the Flannel Mouth brand, thereby relocating this big fish from the little pond into the main stream.
Working diligently and intimately with their new friends in the big city, Flannel Mouth began embracing its distinct approach to the writing process, often merging early influences with an otherworldly knack for the fresh and innovative. You’ll find nary a chorus in a Flannel Mouth number, as the young men focus their efforts more so on a powerful and fluid arrangement. But when those choruses rear their catchy craniums, prepare yourself for an awfully infectious earworm infestation.
The Spring of 2012 found itself in the wake of Flannel Mouth’s debut EP, “Pull in Your Horns,” which was met with rampant national acclaim. The boys could be observed trailing dates at the Warped Tour, making friends and assuring attendance at venues the following evenings, quickly cementing their name around the Midwest as a noteworthy and unique performance any night of the week. Many moons passed, many miles crept under their tires (and a couple vans above them), but the boys carry on, singing their songs for friends and strangers alike.
It is now 2016, a year unlike any previous, and with it comes the long-fabled and awaited debut full-length, entitled “The Prisoner’s Cinema.” The sounds these boys married into a 14-song, three-part epic showcases and illustrates their maturation into a budding musical narrative powerhouse. Each song has its own life, weaving with the peaks and valleys of the story, with boisterous crescendos and dreamy cadences, combining in a classic comedy-tragedy style born anew. Prepare yourself for the most animalistic of rage and the most empathetic of heartbreak all in one 51-minute sitting.
Now that we’ve got your ears properly bent, do your eyes a favor and catch Flannel Mouth emerging from their Midwestern town and appearing at number of SXSW showcases, a tour per earthly season, promoting their achievements at Warped Tour, and making their presence known with a pair of music videos. Then it’s back to the studio with these young men, as a follow-up to “The Prisoner’s Cinema” is vital to all our livelihoods.