The most revealing detail about Young Allies may be that nearly everyone in the band sings. Even when Fritz Michel occupies the lead role, the project is structured around multiple voices and perspectives. That collaborative model shapes the debut EP Fingers Entwined, a record that frequently feels like a conversation being carried through music.
Michel’s songs provide the initial framework, but the performances resist the separation between songwriter and backing band. Guitarist Tosh Sheridan, bassist Gavin Price, drummer Isaac Gardner, keyboardist Phil Kadet, and vocalist Shelly Bhushan each contribute to the record’s sense of movement and shared ownership.
The title track offers a fitting introduction. Inspired by double-exposed Polaroids, “Fingers Entwined” considers what happens when separate lives overlap. The band mirrors that idea through an arrangement in which no single instrument supplies the entire emotional argument. Meaning accumulates through small exchanges.
That approach developed during Young Allies’ residency at LIC Bar, where the group had repeated opportunities to revise the songs in public. Live performance became a practical workshop. Tempos settled, spaces opened, and the musicians learned when to support a phrase and when to step away from it.
“Watchman” benefits from that collective patience. The song’s source is a medieval troubadour text, but the performance avoids treating antiquity as a novelty. Young Allies brings the emotional situation forward by emphasizing the tension among voices, duties, and desires that remain unresolved.
“Are You In” presents collaboration as a kind of invitation. Inspired partly by Robert Frost, the track asks how people choose to enter a moment despite knowing that it cannot last. The band gives the song a gentle forward pull, creating an appealing contrast between its reflective subject and its active rhythm.
“You Never Can Tell” closes the EP by placing Young Allies inside one of rock and roll’s most familiar stories. Rather than using the cover as a display of range, the band treats it as another opportunity for collective interpretation. The wit and optimism remain intact, but the performance belongs unmistakably to the same group heard on the preceding tracks.
Fingers Entwined succeeds because Young Allies understands collaboration as a musical practice, not simply a description of how the project was organized. Listening, adjusting, and leaving room become audible parts of the record. The EP introduces a band whose chemistry comes from ongoing negotiation, giving these four songs a warmth that feels earned.