5 out of 5

Label: Dim Mak

Produced by: Brendan Benson

Ten songs, ten minutes.  Right.  What to say?  Your first impressions will barely have time to form before the EP is over, so why don’t we start there: first impressions.  I’ve just given a track number and a time that suggests that songs run to, on average, a minute each.  Some type of spazcore stuff, is that what you’re expecting?  Maybe some Ex-Models-esque speed-math?  Are you done trying to qualify things?  If you listened to Whirlwind’s first record, you’ll be curious how their Jack White-ized bass-heavy riffage translates to this formula.  Their compositions on that debut were pretty tight and catchy as hell; what happens when it’s compressed?  Quite a bit, it turns out.  Whirlwind Heat has some spazz elements, you weren’t too far out there.  But the backbone is weird pop, something in the Brainiac or Starlight Mints vibe, funneled through a DIY recording style that emphasizes a bare essentials sound, even when the dudes are jamming out on various instruments.  Minus the White Stripes influence, Whirlwind can get weird without it feeling so forced; they can also get silly poppy and not feel the need to justify it with some distortion.  So Flamingo Honey emerges as this oddly crazily well-rounded release, packing an entire album’s worth of styles into its ten minutes without, somehow, feeling rushed.  The group even somehow “takes its time” through the bookend stripped down tracks, The Bone and Lazy Morning, which, though lyrically oblique and/or simple, don’t take a turn toward mockery or winking references.  Elsewhere, the group can still rock out – witness the hook-filled The Meat Packers – but there’s that strong pop backing that lends itself to smile-worthy toe-tapping on each and every track.  This is a trend that would continue, getting even more stripped down on the next album, which makes Flamingo Honey an interesting mid-step between pleasantly quirky beats and rip-snorting herky-jerky rock.

It’s only ten minutes.  It’s worth every second.

This should be your first WH stopping point, except it might ruin other spazzy bands for you who can’t manage to make sparse run times seem so fleshed out.