The Lavender Reviews: "mwah!" from emily the band

By: Katelyn Barbour (She/Her)

Hitting the play button on emily the band’s latest EP "mwah!" feels like opening your old high school diary. It’s glitter pen calligraphy with tear drops inlaid into the pages, but you can’t quite remember if those were tears of sadness or joy. It’s emotional. It’s nostalgic. It’s raw, but it’s still you. And it’s ever-so ironically bound in a bright pink journal. It’s a reminder that us former and current queer kids of the world are still finding our way through times of confusion and uncertainty, and emily the band takes that uncertainty, multiplies it, finds meaning in it, and loves and cherishes it. 

emily the band is a three-piece queer girl group based in central Illinois that melds indie-pop icons such as Soccer Mommy, Snail Mail, and girl in red with their own vividly sparkling harmonies. emily the band comes across with a unique and poignant sound that could suit such occasions as dancing alone in your room at 2 a.m. or a late afternoon road trip with friends after the conversation may have gotten a little too deep. Their new EP "mwah!" is a showcase of how they seamlessly weave intimate but still familiar lyrics into delicious head-bopping jams. Songs on this short but enticing EP range from a hopeless romanticism to an angsty realism, all the while staying incredibly sincere and heartfelt. 

As a general rule, emily the band refuses to shy away from topics of queerness, love, and the juicy ambiguity therein. Throughout their EP, they extend their modern, catchy, indie-pop spin to the classic love song. In their song “marceline” – and yes, it is definitely inspired by that one lesbian fan-favorite vampire from Adventure Time – they complicate the classic tale of two girls pining after one another with the addition of a third person: “now I think my girlfriend’s jealous, not of you but of me.” 

In one of their new songs, “queer platonic crush,” they broaden the idea of queer love to the friendships formed within the community. It makes sense, as they state on their own website that their band was built on the principle of finding each other as “platonic soulmates.” Bending the heteronormative rules of what crushes, lovers, and sweethearts look like, they invoke a rule known to many gay friend groups across the world: Without each other, we wouldn’t know where to begin to love. 

Though not all love is happy and healthy, a fact which emily the band acknowledges in the lyrics of “ace of spades.” In this new song, the band employs metaphor to explore a one-sided romantic relationship built from an ample amount of trust and transparency on one side and an emotional wall on the other. 

The complexities of love and the nuances within it obviously serve as inspiration for this EP. "mwah!" stretches the boundaries of what it means to be infatuated with someone, romantically, platonically, or otherwise. With a thoughtfully crafted musicality in one hand to rope you in and a beautifully penned lyricism in the other to smash what you thought you knew about the basics of love, emily the band delivers an utterly delectable combination. 

Stream "mwah!" anywhere you find music, and make sure to join emily the band at their release show this Saturday, February 15 at The Space in Champaign, IL.