Math Rock at its finest, broken down molecularly.

Tiny Moving Parts wrote, recorded, and released a record called “This Couch Is Long & Full of Friendship” on January 13th, 2013. It’s regarded as one of the best records to come out at the beginning of what’s called the “Emo Revival”. This was a resurrection of “Midwest Emo” and “Math Rock” popular in the 90’s with bands like American Football, Mineral, and Cap’n Jazz to name a few. Tiny Moving Parts is a band of three members, Dylan Mattheisen, Matthew Chevalier, and William “Bill” Chevalier. Dylan is the cousin of Matthew and Bill. They formed in 2008 while attending Benson High School in Minnesota. They released two albums before their accredited “debut” record, “Waves Recede, The Ocean is Full of Waves”, and “Moving to Antarctica”. On these records, you can hear them starting to form their own sound as Post-Hardcore, Midwest Emo and Math Rock all come together to create something that is definitively Tiny Moving Parts. Is this album good? Yes, it’s pretty good. Let me explain why.

The album starts off with “Dakota”. This is a pretty good start to the record, as all the writing styles are previewed with this almost three minute song. Dylan is the sole guitarist of this band. He fulfills the role of lead and rhythm guitar while singing. He’s revered online as one of the most talented people in his field, and for good reason. His work on this album and the synergy with Bill and Matt create the mathematical polyrhythms, beautiful chord progressions, and fast melodic arpeggios and riffs present on this record. The 2nd track of the record, “Along the Lakeside” is one of the first examples of the band’s full enticement in their crazy song structures and technical playing. The synergy needed within a band to meticulously time the rests and rhythms during a song like this is vital. You’ll notice that part of this record’s charm is the capturing charisma of Dylan and Matt’s screams. Their yells sound painful, like they’re coming from a very raw place. This captures the amount of energy also present instrumentally. One of the best examples of this comes on the track “Clouds Above My Head”.

This track starts off strong with the band heading full force with drum fills and bombastic riffs before heading into a verse with just as much energy as the intro had. The real killer is what happens directly out of the verse. In a subversion of expectation, the band builds to a breakdown straight out of the verse with Matt yelling the lyrics “Let it flood with love” before a breakdown with a double-handed tapping riff comes in to create a catharsis like no-other on the record. It’s moments like these that show Tiny Moving Parts aren’t about wasting your time with things you’ve already heard. They want to keep you on your toes while having you sing or air-guitar the entire way through. 

It’s moments like these that justify the reasons why this band has their niche that they do, full of die-hard fans such as myself, who loves what they do with a burning passion. Chances are, you probably haven’t heard of this band before reading this, and that’s totally okay. This area of music isn’t exactly a mainstream genre with five-hundred million global listeners a month, but it’s a genre of music that deserves a light on it because of its uniqueness, musically. This record in particular is incredible, and a standout to anyone willing to give this new movement a shot.