This Philadelphia trio's lineup has done time in Kill the Man Who Questions, Limp Wrist, and Off Minor, but their brand of music is really quite different than much of what they've explored with those acts, taking a rather open and spacious approach to angular sort of indie rock/post-punk or what have you, definitely ending up with numerous similarities to a DC/Dischord sound (think Fugazi with more breathing room and subtly upbeat quirkiness to the songwriting). Expect lots of jangly guitar riffs without very much distortion at all, thus giving the rhythm section more room to roam around and kind of playing off of the fact that they're a trio. There's a certain edge of looseness to the guitar playing that leans towards being slightly sloppy on occasion, but it never lacks control, and the rhythm section holds things down at all times. Most of the vocals are sort of lingering in between speaking, yelling, and singing, at times leaning more towards one form of delivery than another, but definitely coming and going as they please. "To All the Young Recruiters" speeds up the tempo enough to lend more of a weird punk kind of backbone to the core of the song before eventually getting a little louder with some great vocal layering against some caustic guitar work; and "Locked Groove" even uses a couple of distant horn accents fairly low in the mix, which come quite out of nowhere. "The Subject on the Sculptor" is among my favorites here, again somewhat faster and more energetic with some killer vocal patterns staggered guitar riffing; followed by the equally memorable "A Sound! A Hall to House It!", which is at times a little darker in its use of dissonance, and I certainly find that to be an effective means of creating some dynamics - though I'm not totally sure what's up with the reggae sounding reverberated chords and pulsing basslines later on in the piece. The recording's pretty good. I like that everything sounds warm and natural, and I wouldn't complain about the carefully raw undercurrents they're flirting with either because it fits their style and a lot of these little accoutrements highlight the fact that they're a trio - and they're not at all overdoing anything. My only suggestion would be to do something with the mix to make slightly better use of the space. I actually really like the vocals and they sound perfect, but they do tend to dominate the mix a lot of times, so if there were a way to thicken up the guitars just a touch without taking away from the prominence of the basslines that would be quite nice. The layout looks good to me and uses a few faintly colored photos of the band against white backgrounds with clean, compact typefaces. I may have cited that there's a sense of "subtly upbeat quirkiness" to elements of the music, but the lyrics don't reflect that at all, instead opting for intensely socio-political commentary presented artistically enough to become quite intriguing and atypical without losing its message: "A petition to marble floors and granite walls, an appeal to city fathers concerning what is ours. They've got your best interest in their hands, so move on. Of course you're invited to play along. Oh won't you please tune in? Oh won't you play in tune?" Very nice. As a whole this is the kind of thing that, for me, is recognizably solid in that it's taking a sound that I'm only marginally interested and making something that I can enjoy and appreciate out of it, so even though I personally am not floored here, I could see the band actually working their way into an even more preferential light for me. So... not bad at all. A nice debut EP that points to something more.
[Cheap Art]
Running time - 18:36, Tracks: 6
[Notable tracks: The Subject on the Sculptor, A Sound! A Hall to House It!]
Cheap Art Records - http://www.cheap-art.com
