Pastiche won’t heal the world
Why call this a “double EP” and not an album (which it is essentially)? I have a notion about that. Sometimes artists produce stuff when they’re chancing their arm. They throw it out there on the off-chance it’s a work of genius, but lest it’s actually a steaming pellet they call it a side-project or a double EP or a mini album. Because frankly they’re not too sure about it themselves. So I think that Richard Swift knows, on some deep level, that this isn’t great. I like lo-fi music, and I like ‘50s pastiche. But being lo-fi and in debt to the ‘50s isn’t inherently interesting in itself. Clean this up and it’s just a pub rock band going through their paces with some rockabilly, some surf, some dub, and some honky-tonk. Being charmingly lo-fi is just the aural equivalent of bed-hair, and doesn’t really save this from being the cabaret nerdfest that it really is.
Key track: ‘NLH’