EP Roundup – What do you mean I only get 5 songs?

Every month, I go on these massive download sprees and somehow end up with a ton of EPs. I’m not quite sure how that happens, because I do my best to limit it to 2 or 3. All those EPs get dumped into a massive playlist and mostly ignored while I hunt for albums to review for this site.

But, every once in a while a song will come up on shuffle and I’ll think, “That’s it. That’s the next album I’m going to review. My work for today is done.” I’ll get all excited and flip over to the album and find out…it’s an EP. And as much as I love EPs, it’s hard to do a full feature on them. So far, only 2 have made the cut.

Today though, I’m calling out 5 EPs that I love because they’re awesome, and hate because they’re short. If you’re in one of these bands, stop reading and go make a full album. Right now.

Aces High, Aces High

• Listen at: www.myspace.com/aceshighca
• Available on: Amazon MP3, eMusic

Aces High is a Southern California band (yay!) with an eponymous (boo!) EP. Their sound is solid classic rock. The music is high-energy and grounded in truly amazing guitar work. The vocals are melodic and delivered with conviction, but you get the feeling that the band’s focus is elsewhere.

Standout track is “Shattered.”

A Big Yes and a small no, Jesus That Looks Terrible On You

• Listen at: www.myspace.com/abigyesandasmallno
• Available on: Amazon MP3, eMusic

An EP with a name this tongue-in-cheek can only be from a Brooklyn band. A Big Yes And A Small No (I’m sorry, I cannot play your silly capitalization game. I was an English major and my head will explode.) credits 9 members on their website, and I believe it, because this EP has some of the most complex instrumentation I’ve ever heard. Having grown up in California in the 90s, I’m inclined to invoke some ska roots for them, but think there’s just as many big band/jazz influences in here as ska. Their sound is solid indie-ironic pop embroidered with keys and brass.

Standout track is “What A Fucking Mess This Turned Out To Be.”

House & Parish, One, One Thousand

• Artist website: houseandparish.com
• Listen at: www.myspace.com/houseandparish
• Available on: Amazon MP3, eMusic

House & Parish is a four-piece band out of Brooklyn that plays melodic, guitar-based indie-rock. One, One Thousand has a lush, relaxed feel to it. The lyrics are intelligent and delivered in an almost conversational style that focuses on simple sing-along melodies. My favorite track on the album is “This Curse,” but you can get “Summer Programme” for free at their website, so you might want to start there.

Mercy Mercedes, Casio Rodeo

• Listen at: www.myspace.com/mercymercedes
• Available on: Amazon MP3, eMusic

I discovered Mercy Mercedes by accident when someone handed me a flyer for them while I was in line for a show a while back. Generally, I don’t like this particular marketing technique. It’s not creative, it’s not entertaining, and it fills my car with little photocopied handbills for bands I probably won’t like. But back in February, readers will remember, I got the flu from hell and had some time on my hands so I went online and hunted down some of the bands I’d gotten flyers for. And Mercy Mercedes was too good to pass up.

Mercy Mercedes plays fluffy, dance rock that’s perfect for driving too fast on PCH. Casio Rodeo incorporates a fair amount of electronic influences without quite crossing the line into full new wave nonsense. The sound is high-energy and full of hooky, sing-along choruses.

Standout track is “Get It Darlin’.”

The Morning Light, The Sounds Of Love

• Listen at: www.myspace.com/themorninglight
• Available on: Amazon MP3, eMusic

Sometimes, a girl needs to listen to something unashamedly sentimental. The Sounds Of Loveby The Morning Light is perfect for those days. The Morning Light plays piano based emo-pop that is captivating, and wonderfully undemanding, which is not to say that the EP is all slow-dance ballads. With a single exception, The Sounds Of Love is comprised of mid to high-tempo songs that stop just short of dance pop. The focus of the EP is on the lyrics instead of the beat, though, and especially the tight vocal interplay between the two vocalists.

Standout track is “The Love.”

What I’m Listening To: Barcelona, Absolutes

• Artist website: wearebarcelona.com
• Listen at: www.myspace.com/wearebarcelona
• Available on: eMusic

Barcelona is a four-piece band out of Washington. I stumbled across Absolutes after downloading Safety Songs by Brian Fennell. After writing a solo album, Fennell put a band together for a tour, which evolved into Barcelona and built Absolutes off the foundation laid in Safety Songs.

Absolutes includes three songs originally recorded on Safety Songs, “Colors,” “Numb” and “Response,” which is a reviewer’s dream. Barcelona’s debut album sticks to the piano based indie style on Fennell’s Safety Songs, but the sound on Absolutes is much more developed. The three duplicated songs have transferred over to Absolutes without dramatic change, and while they fit nicely along side the new material, they lack the lush instrumentation of the original material on Absolutes.

Barcelona includes Brian Eichelberger, a self-taught bassist and classically trained violinist, and lord knows I love a string section. Absolutes pays off on the “classically trained violinist” tease on “Get Up, Get Up, Get Up” and “Please Don’t Go” (the latter will break your heart). Still, I have my fingers crossed for a bigger showing on the follow-up.

Standout tracks are “It’s About Time”, “First Floor People” and “Please Don’t Go.”

Side note, I don’t often recommend band blogs because they tend to come in one of two varieties – super insidery or overblown tour updates. However, while you’re checking out Barcelona’s site, make sure you read their blog, especially the obituary for Ronald.

What I’m Listening To: Rejects United, Boyhood Survival Kit

• Artist website: www.rejectsunited.com
• Listen at: www.myspace.com/rejectsunited
• Available on: Amazon MP3, eMusic

Rejects United are a four-piece band from Portugal (who knew?) that play punk-influenced rock of the louder-faster-harder variety. Boyhood Survival Kit is their first album and it is equal parts classic rock and old school punk. The album is ambitious, invoking 30 years of music history over 14 tracks as well as mixing in modern styles.

Considering the range of influences on Boyhood Survival Kit, it’s a surprisingly cohesive album. It has the intensity of an old-fashioned punk album, but is moderated with a strong melodic sensibility. The result is a high-energy, complex sound that doesn’t sacrifice big, sing-along melodies. The vocals take center-stage for most of the album and are delivered with deceptive precision. The melodies are simple enough to allow for fairly direct vocals that emphasize intensity over technique on most the songs, but when the band slows down a bit the vocals show remarkable range. The lyrics occasionally stray into theatricality (“Mr. Adams Love Proposal”), but the most over the top songs have an ironic tone that undercuts the overblown metaphors. The instrumental work is solid and tightly delivered, straying into remarkable on several songs (“Learning Through Mutilation”). I’m the wrong person to go to for percussion or guitar critiques, but beyond being awesome, some of this stuff sounds pretty hard to deliver.

Standout tracks are “Dead In The Head,” “Learning Through Mutilation” and “Compulsive Denier.”

What I’m Listening To: The Panic Division, Songs From The Glasshouse

• Artist website: www.thepanicdivision.com
• Listen at: www.myspace.com/thepanicdivision
• Available on: Amazon MP3, eMusic

The Panic Division is a four piece band out of San Antonio. Songs From The Glasshouse is their second album, and it caught my attention because at first glance I thought it might be a live album recorded at The Glass House in Pomona. Which is why you shouldn’t buy things based on their titles. Someday I’m going to learn that.

Songs From The Glasshouseis a lush, synthtastic composition that is equal parts 80s pop revival and old-fashioned guitar rock. The lyrics and electronic elements draw heavily on the most cringe-worthy parts of 80s pop, which sounds like a bad thing. But The Panic Division has somehow managed to draw out the pieces of that sound and combine them with truly stellar guitar rock to create a sound that is neither retro nor really modern. Everything about this album is big. The sound is complex, the lyrics deal in metaphors of epic scale, and the vocals are delivered with so much conviction that it’s easy to overlook just how potentially awful the lyrics are. It requires a special kind of singer to take a lyric as cheesetasic as “take these broken wings and learn to fly again, learn to live so free” (“Broken Wings”) and deliver it in such a way that you can sing along and not feel like a complete tool.

Standout tracks are “Big Day,” “The Pieces That Mattered” and “Broken Wings”

What I’m Listening To: The Casual Lean, Swears

• Listen at: www.myspace.com/thecasuallean
• Available on: Amazon MP3, eMusic

Swears is the first album from Massachusettes five-piece band The Casual Lean, and it’s a raucous, swaggering piece of work. The album has the same ironic tone as Ghosts from The Gay Blades, but rather than TGB’s almost acoustic feel, The Casual Lean’s sound is complex and almost lush at times.

Swears opens with “The Bride,” a song that invokes every indie-rock tradition in the book and still manages to be awesomely original. The Casual Lean’s strongest asset is their storytelling ability, and even on songs where they may not be telling their own stories they deliver enough intensity that Swears feels personal. The lyrics are delivered with conviction and range, stacatto bursts on “The Bride” and a melodic croon on “The Deer.” Swears meanders a bit as the band plays with different styles and sounds, but is a remarkably cohesive piece. Lyrics and music both are delivered with enough conviction and pure ability to carry the core of the sound through the band’s experiments.

Standout tracks are “Third Degree Burns,” “The Blackout” and “The Deer.”