Scarves

The first thing that came to mind when I listened to Scarves was that they had a lousy singer. But as I let the album play through I realized that the eccentric vocals help shape the unique sound Scarves is gifted with. Empty Houses isn’t like anything I’ve heard before. It’s upbeat, catchy, quirky, delicate, melancholic, and really fresh all wrapped in one tight combo. Scarves is a Seattle-based entity made up of three humans named Niko, Arda, and Marshall. DEVO is a claimed influence. - KVRX

Coming-of-age stories have become modern mythology (you know the gods: The Catcher in the Rye, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, John Hughes). With its debut full-length album Empty Houses, Seattle indie-rock group Scarves adds to the lore. “Icarus With a Rattle Can” explores the idea of impulsively getting matching tattoos, one of Icarus and one of the sun—an apt summation of the epic, hyperemotional messiness that comes with youth (teenage years are a time of flying too close to the sun, you see). Vocalist/guitarist Nikolas Stathakopoulos plays up the gravitas with lines like, “Thou shalt not swim in man-made lakes/Thou shalt not eat on paper plates.” The riffs and wordplay are further enhanced by the perfectly muddy and chaotic rhythm section of bassist David Price and drummer Marcus Verdoes. The trio makes the precision of math rock rough and relatable. The opening of “A ‘Pop’ Song” showcases Stathakopoulos’ guitar virtuosity before pummeling with dissonant and harsh guitar chords; it’s indicative of those sleepless high-school nights and moments of serenity among the hijinks; of a teenage world in which everything is like the Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979” video. As Stathakopoulos bellows on the chorus, full of the uncertainty of tomorrow, “When they say be brave/They mean brace for impact.” - Seattle Weekly

The group’s pop sensibilities heighten the youthful vibe brought about in many of the songs’ topics. Stathakopoulos’ narratives highlight familiar actions like watching reruns of “The Simpsons,” making out on parents’ couches, and even “skating for Jesus.”

“I’m very in my teen angst period,” Stathakopoulos laughs. “I try to get existential but I really don’t like my philosophy because I feel like my rhetoric’s really bad and so I feel like I try to write and someone’s going to call my bullshit so bad.”

Stathakopoulos says a lot of the inspiration for his writing comes from playing out arguments in his head between two different viewpoints, then when he sits down to write music he personifies the two into characters. He then tries to imagine what it would be like if they got along. Though the characters are somewhat fictional, he says they are typically combinations of different people he knows.

On songs like “Tag!” from their recent TV EP, listenersfind two friends at odds. The narrator watches as their friend falls into a manic crowd of graffiti tagging, running from people who might not exist, and using a sharpened ballpoint pen to “carve foreign phrases” into her wrists. Even though the storyteller doesn’t agree with the path she’s taking, he’ll still choose to follow her.

“You said come with me and I said, ‘okay.’ Because I’d follow you, I’d follow you anywhere,” Stathakopoulos belts at the end of the track. In another context, it may seem like a throwaway line. But that despite it all, the narrator would still choose to go with this girl after all of the doubts of her sanity makes it a poignant moment.

“I watched a lot of T.V. as a kid. I was really antisocial,” Stathakopoulos says, also noting that he has insomnia which kept him up watching sitcoms, primarily from the 60s and 70s. “I’ve probably seen every episode of ‘M*A*S*H’ like 30 times.”

This fondness and nostalgia for television is what inspired the TV EP. At one point, each of the three songs made reference to television. However, some references were cut out during the rewriting process. At one point “Tag!” referenced Will Smith’s hit “Fresh Prince of Bel Air.”

Scarves opened their El Corazon set with “Broken Branches,” one of the most youth centric songs on the EP. It highlights everything from being 13 and falling out of a tree, to being in high school and spray painting roller rinks, getting drivers licenses, and overall rebelling. Stathakopoulos would lean into the mic and rolls his eyes on key lines. During “Tag!” Price jumped down into the crowd and played the entire set looking up at his bandmates from below. All the while Verdoes aggressively and meticulously pounded his drum set to keep the groove going.

There’s a punk sassiness to how the three perform. It’s a reckless abandon many reluctantly lose in their teens, but Scarves use it as fuel. - Pre Amp

Scarves mastermind Niko Stathakopoulos only seems to be getting better and more self-assured over time. His work combines a jarring mixture of Northwest indie rock, math rock, and classic emo to create an emotional landscape that Niko feels best suits him. In this, Scarves make themselves more relatable than many of the other indie rock outfits out there, if only for Niko’s stark honesty and abrasive attempt at human connection. For a young songwriter, Stathakopoulos isn’t afraid to challenge his audience and invite them into something more rewarding than the status quo. This time around, Niko was joined by a fresh lineup, featuring former members of Seattle band Friends & Family. The set was a grand continuation and a great offering from of the city’s top notch rising acts. - KEXP