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The bromance of Two Tongues

Bobby Goodwin

According to urbandictionary.com, " 'bromance' describes the complicated love and affection shared by two straight males."

Love makes people do crazy things. Forget Brody Jenner's new show, for iconic emo frontmen Max Bemis (Say Anything) and Chris Conley (Saves The Day), their 4-year-old bromance resulted in the formation of Two Tongues, a musical collaboration MTV could never produce.

It was a dream come true for Bemis when he first met Conley in 2004. In an EPK video interview posted on the band's MySpace profile, the whacky Say Anything lead singer remembered getting to know his teen idol:

"It was always surreal at first for me to be friends with (Chris) because (Saves The Day) is really a band that I looked up to and really got me through growing up and all that stuff."

In the same video interview, Conley remembers liking Bemis from the beginning.

"Right away (Me and Max) were really good friends, we kind of just hit it off. And I think a lot of that had to do with our mutual admiration of each other's music."

When Bemis and Conley decided to take time off from their main bands to do form Two Tongues in 2008, they each took one band member with them (Coby Linder and David Soloway, respectively), to complete the four-piece side project.

Released on Feb. 3 on Vagrant Records, their self-titled debut album is like an emo kid's wet dream after being blue-balled for months by Two Tongues' postponed summer 2008 original release date.

Under "general info" on their MySpace page, Two Tongues "sounds like" section reads "...Is A Real Boy meet Through Being Cool."

Somehow, Two Tongues manages to live up to the band's self-description as a combination of two of their long-established archetypal emo albums. Not just another pop-punk side project, fans of Two Tongues consider them to be somewhat of a super group.

"Two Tongues came together as kind of a realization of a fantasy for me," Bemis said in the same video interview. "Saves The Day has been my favorite band since I was about 14 or 15 years old."

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As much as Saves The Day meant to Bemis during his teen years, Say Anything played a similar role in Conley's life during his recent quarter-life crisis.

"I went through like a year and a half long, sort of like, writer's block / depression, just dark time," Conley said in the same video interview. "And Max's record, ...Is A Real Boy was the thing that like lifted me out of it."

With the belief that opposites attract, Bemis approached Conley about writing an album based on their developing personal relationship, and the recording process of Two Tongues began. Self-produced, band members had complete creative control of the record

without a producer pushing their sound in one direction or another.

"Me and Chris sort of both are like stereotypical yin and yang, so how we react off each other became the source of the concept of the record," Bemis said in the same video interview.

Key tracks like the haunting album opener, "Crawl," the clean pop-punky, "Wowee Zowee" and the slowed-down, sensitive "Try Not To Save Me" feature the range of styles and sounds Bemis and Conley can produce when they put their tongues together (see album artwork).

In the same video interview, Soloway gave his impression of Two Tongues:

"[The album] might be catchier music than a lot of music that Saves The Day or Say Anything have done recently ... Having (Chris and Max) singing together sounds amazing."

The minute-long "Interlude" is the album's hidden gem, placed right in the middle of Two Tongues, with guest vocals sung by Sherri DuPree of Eisley.

But not every song on Two Tongues is pure ear candy. "Don't You Want To Come Home" is the first minor disappointment on an otherwise solid record, sounding more like a run-of-the-mill wannabe Weezer track, a letdown following the more carefully crafted "Silly Game."

The questionable album closer, "Even If You Don't" is almost too goofy, even for a band with Bemis. While no songs on Two Tongues are truly "bad," leaving fans with a soul-less Ween cover may be a hard pill for listeners to swallow after being spoiled by the gut wrenchingly emotional songs that kick off the CD.

Still, other than a few less than amazing songs, Two Tongues is just the kind of illegitimate love child album one would expect to come out of Bemis's and Conley's bromance. The record stands out as a refreshing listen in the cluttered "one-album wonder" music scene of over-marketed Alternative Press and Warped Tour bands. Let old school fans of Say Anything and Saves The Day give Two Tongues a chance and they'll be left wondering which bands to prefer, new or old-an impressive accomplishment for any side project.


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