3 out of 5

Label: digital download through bandcamp

Producer: Shane Hochstetler (recorded by)

Ifihadahifi started as a wandering rock troupe with a bunch of noise mixed in.  Then their noise guy left and they went into more of a straight punk direction, but that noise influence morphed into a kind of spazzy energy that worked itself out via gang  vocals and some wacky keys that would pepper some tracks.  The albums and EPs of this version of the band had their bummer tracks, where things were just sorta’ straight forward, maybe some good choruses but nothing that just amps you up from the get-go, but it was always buffered by what surrounded it.  2008’s John Congleton-mixed ‘Fame By Proxy’ showed a disappointing shift toward more of that normal format, but this might’ve been John’s influence, as his produced Thermals release similarly sucked a lot of energy out of that group.  The Nada Surf EP seemed to confirm this, ’cause the band jumped back to full-force skull-rattling tracks that cut a zig-zag between humor and insight, experimentation and rocking out.

I’m not sure if I quite understand ‘Songs from Sexy Results’ – it’s some kind of theme album that was made for a ‘variety show’ (http://alvernopresents.alverno.edu/ ?) that carries the same name as the album.  Maybe you know what this variety show is – I certainly don’t.  But the songs, which mostly focus around something something science and, apparently, the Higgs-Boson particle, carry the threat that themes offer, where the inspiration is somewhere removed, somewhere outside of the songs.  So while the tracks are legit – the Theme Song is a great opener with sweet breakdowns, and ‘Throw Down’ has a sort of classic HiFi feel to it – you really have to turn it up to burn it into your brain, otherwise these tracks just don’t grab you.  They hover on the fringes of originality, sounding more like a group reworking HiFi tracks to a particular end, even though these are definitely new compositions.  And the ‘LHC Intro’ and ‘Interlude’ are just sorta’ time wasters, 20 second clips of ambient noise that don’t work as intros or interludes, just slowing down the mix.

So ‘Sexy Results’ sorta sounds like carryover of the ‘Fame By Proxy’ mentality.  Still grooving together, still feeling like they’re having fun, but the EP just doesn’t shake you up consistently enough to move out of the average range.