Send "Native " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Sputnikmusic |
 What may be unfortunate to a listener of Wrestling Moves, especially considering whether or not you’ve heard their promising EP, is that this debut full-length from these Indiana natives isn’t all that shocking of a statement. Native do skew their post-hardcore stylings with a healthy dose of progressive and math rock influences, but there’s nothing here that you couldn’t find similarly done on a Kidcrash or a These Arms Are Snakes album, among many others. Here, Native choose to be the influenced instead of attempting to be the influencers. But that doesn’t mean that this record isn’t fun as hell to listen to, or that Native isn’t staggeringly talented, and this is why Wrestling Moves never falls into modern post-hardcore’s seemingly endless pool of monotony. This is a band that can run through gaping crescendos, blistering technicality, and numerous paces - key examples being the titular track and “Five Year Payoff” - and do it all with the effortlessness of a band that’s been at it for years. On songs like “Ponyboy” and “Legoland” is where they really shine, however. These tracks are progressive and ambitious, starting and stopping momentum at the turn of a fly, and lasting a few minutes longer than they should - but never becoming uninteresting....full text |
| Absolutepunk |
| It’s to Native’s credit that the most jarring aspect of Wrestling Moves is also its most hidden. A band with so much screeching and so little paucity of any type will inevitably create layers. Some more immediate than others (like Bobby Markos’ frantic vocalizing), these tiers of post-hardcore mathiness tend to make for a dense record, one that’s in need of some serious unwrapping. Wrestling Moves would be a gag gift if its climaxes weren’t so everlasting. And after you remove the at-times heavy chugging of guitarists Ed O’Neil and Dan Evans, or the through-the-telephone effects of Markos, you see that what Markos is saying, what this music is actually about, makes it so much more than some indie record that we’ll all pretend to like just because we’re supposed to. On “Five Year Payoff”, a slow-moving force of a song, Markos uses cryptic effects to hide his super simple message: “These verses show readers the pictures of history / Words will age but never will fade.” Switch that light bulb on. To describe a song on Wrestling Moves is to describe a soooong. And by giving the listener gobfuls to play with, we are allowed to overcome the initial feeling of extreme musical gluttony and pick out only the most nourishing parts. The fullness fades into a yearning for content, and that’s exactly what Wrestling Moves possesses. “Marco Polo” features but two lines from Markos, and yet despite my masturbatory remarks above, it’s the album’s finest piece. For nearly too long, a lone guitar chisels away in hopes of finding a rewarding melody, but once the discovery is made it is gone again. Markos does his best Pyramids impersonation and hammers us all to hell in less than a minute. A song like this takes trust in not only one’s talent but also in one’s listener. For an overactive band like Native to make us sit and chew for 3+ minutes, and for it to be a success, is almost unthinkable. Think of "Marco Polo" as a reimagining....full text |
| Decoymusic |
| If at first Native just sound like a bunch of young musicians too eager to twiddle their guitars aimlessly behind senseless yelling, listen harder and then listen again. The Indiana band’s latest, Wrestling Moves, is quite the journey to get into, but once its 90’s post hardcore-cum-instrumental passages style sinks in, you’ll be lucky to escape from its grasp. Pretty impressive for a band that formed in 2007, huh? It’ll be even more impressive – and this I’m sure of - when it turns out the album is one of the best things 2010 will hear. Wrestling Moves recalls brand names like At The Drive-In and Fugazi, but thankfully never opts for the lazy route by simply paying tribute to their predecessors. From the ferocity of “Ponyboy” to the oscillating riffs in “Marco Polo” to the shouted vocals and deliciously technical drumming that lace their way through the album, Native show off energy that is wholly unique and mesmerizing. Try not to get addicted when Bobby Markos proclaims, “Rise! Take thanks for creation / We side with those who are humble,” on “Shirts and Skins.” Good luck with that. The lyrics are something to write home about, too. Despite what the dusty, dreary color scheme of the album art may lead you to believe, what Markos shouts is actually bright, intricate and exciting. “From winter to summer the climates like costumes / We paint them depending on spirit / With calmness we push on revealing the boldness we’ve disguised with blankets of distrust,” he rasps on “Backseat Crew.” On “Members List,” he chatters about nostalgia in language you would expect to find framed on someone’s wall: “The years slow and run out / We grasp for a last night where days are remembered / Ruins collected like trinkets will hang calmly from mantles.” And then there are hints of pretentiousness – what in the world is “Rip off the fake nails and follow the tracks of deer up ahead” supposed to mean? – but it doesn’t distract much from the surrounding beauty....full text |
Native lyrics
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