“The Golden West” was the debut album by San Francisco band NRVS LVRS, a simultaneous love letter and warning shot to their home city of San Francisco. It was a record that quietly mourned the slow strangulation of a city in the grips of gentrification, rent crisis and artistic decline.
According to their press release, NRVS LVRS spin a dreamscape of internal narratives that envelops exactly what it means to live in San Francisco. But their new video for “2 Young 2 Know,” premiering below, also captures exactly what it means to be young and reckless universally. Following two women drinking in graveyards, flashing cars, and snogging, it’s basically a compilation of all the best moments of your life in three minutes through a Harmony Korine lens.
Taken from their debut full-length The Golden West, released on Breakup Records, “2 Young 2 Know” is a snapshot of the emotional place between starry-eyed hope and late-night anxiety. Landing somewhere between Tears for Fears and My Bloody Valentine, NRVS LVRS have taken the particular days when your responsibility-free teenage years begin to creep into existential crisis and turned them into magic.
It’s one of the strongest lyrical records of the year, and luckily they had the tunes to match it; Black Diamonds was a jangling blast of Indie-Pop, 2YOUNG2KNOW recalled the tear-stained danceability of Stars, whilst Cordoba Grey was The Human League grabbing Ladytron’s hand and taking them on a perfectly harmonised killing spree. The stand out moment though was the stunning title track, “The Golden West”, the sound of a melancholic Flaming Lips, heartbroken by the site of tech-migrants who, “don’t care about this town, they only heard there’s gold out west.” A chillingly beautiful record.
NRVS LVRS are:
A. Gomez
Bevin Lee
Wendy Brents
Charles Belvedere
Rye In The Sky
Aaron Hazen
Additional noise by:
Dylan Donkin
Patrick Brown
Sean Paulson
The Fat Angel Sings 