5 out of 5

Label: Polyvinyl

Produced by: Jay Pellicci

Slow your roll, 31Knots chums: I’m not saying this is the best 31K release, nor is it necessarily the first thing I’d recommend to a new listener.  It’s an action-packed EP, however, and was pretty much a game changer for the band at the time it was released.  Re-listens over the years have resulted in various opinions: when I became somewhat critical of their Polyvinyl output vs. their older stuff, the songs began to feel too simple; too face value.  Sometimes I would fall in love with the opening track, dismissing the rest.  Now that “new” Knots’ output has overtaken the classic stuff, though, and I’ve listened to it with some distance from those early beloved releases, I can re-hear what grabbed me on that first listen: that these are immediately affecting and aggressive pop songs.  This was the first sign of a shift in their sound, when it became less a prog thing and more an indie rock thing; when it became clearer that Haege was the face of the band, his vocals recorded up front and clipped lines barked at us.

Is it representative of their sound?  Yes, no.  Albums are a better experience with Knots, I think.  The power of the tracks often grow with context.  But ‘Curse’ has an undeniable impact with its stop/start opening track (appropriately called ‘Welcome to Stop’) and Haege’s sweet and despicable lyrical juxtapositions are full force on ‘The Corpse and the Carcass.’  And the harried delivery of ‘Coward With Claws.’  Maybe it’s the most obvious release from the band – which is still different from accessible – stepping aside of the poetic prog of the early stuff and not quite as fleshed out or organic as the stuff to come, and that makes it a very powerful EP indeed, something to take a breath before putting on.  I put it on, and I’m glad to be a 31Knots fan.