Artwork by Rachel Sauter

I’ve been meaning to offer up props to this new Iowa City crew, Emperors Club, for a couple weeks now. But it seems to be as good a time as any.
As seniors around the country get back into the groove after spring break or lower their head to eek out the last few days before that respite, graduation is ever-present on the horizon. And a good many students who are wrapping up their undergrad careers may do as the first track from Emperors Club suggests, and make their ways to the hipster’s mecca.
“All The Good Ones Go To Brooklyn,” filled with hints of The Decemberists and other country-fried indie-rockers, is a remorseful farewell to friends. Friends who made a small place like Iowa City feel exciting, who then decided to become small fish in a gigantic pond because they “needed something new.”
The song’s strongest selling point, beyond it’s impeccable construction, are the blissful harmonies. Even with all the baroque pop and ornate compositions out there, the cascading, vocal interplay that comes at the song’s end still stand out as heartbreakingly beautiful. But that aforementioned song construction makes the vocals shine all that much more, no one instrument does too much. Each instrument, beat, strum, pluck, serves the overarching piece without feeling too rudimentary or hackneyed. Like hitting a Mariano Rivera cutter, writing a tight pop ballad is a feat, my friends.

However, I’m not sure, since I ventured off to Chicago, if this all means I’m destined for Brooklyn later or if I never was a “good one,” but I’ll try not to make this too much about me, just peep the beautiful tune below: