Not For You is a 3 piece ambient/noise/shoegaze/rock band from Chicago Illinois. With only two releases on to their name, one of which being merely a jam session, their April (2015) release Canary in the Mine is the best look at what the band is actually about.
Canary in the Mine is a place where genres blend, where you try to piece together where the inspiration from each entity came fromt. “From Lindsey’s Spaceship”, while not the best track of the release, does well in setting the tone 
for it. Hypnotic and almost otherworldly, it feels as if it could have come from outer space. “It Seems” is the heaviest track; think shoegaze meets hardcore. The back of throat screams at the end scour up just the right amount of anger and frustration, paired with a confidence that sounds like it came from a sense of past insecurity, Lindsey half belts half shrieks “and I do what I want to when I fucking want to” with such power you want to knock down the door of whoever gave these lyrics their meaning. The following track, “You Are a Pothole”, is the most melodic and even soothing of the release, but the dissonance of the vocals make it a bit haunting.
Lindsey has a certain and peculiar way of pronouncing things as she’s singing. The way she breathily chants “all mine” in “I Don’t Need” makes it nearly impossible to understand those are the words she’s actually using, but there is something there. The strange ups and heavy down inflections of her voice give her a distinctive dialect. I wonder if a few years from now this will become the ambient rock accent, much like Tom Delonge’s peculiar accent resulted in the pop punk accent many bands still (over)utilize. Not For You keeps you guessing, keeps you wanting more. There is something very honest about Canary, not the kind of honesty that makes you uncomfortable, but the kind that you seek in a friend.
You can listen to Canary in the Mine through their bandcamp.
MIDWEST MUSIC COLLECTIVE 