3 out of 5

Label: Self-released, digital?

Producer: Pet Genius

While it lacks the lo-fi rattling crunch of the album, Pet Genius’ follow-up EP is – and pardon my dismissal of the rest of the band – another outlet for one of Stephen Brodsky’s stylings, filtered through catchy and amusing tracks that hum pretty snappily through the speakers.  Steve’s lyrics tend to jump in a circle around poetic rants, poetic wanderings, surreal wanderings, or silly, smiley songs about nothing.  EP seems mostly full of the latter, but the sweet and emphatic delivery Stephen gives the words – about lemonade, about making out – make even the goofiest imagery tolerable.  But the music assists in swallowing the pill: PG, on both releases, is mixed/recorded with this delicious live-to-tape sound, rather high end but each element sticking out for taut and resonant without the sounds crashing into one another, which I think goes into the songwriting, swooping into rocking, Zeppelin-ish riffs before settling into an acceptable slowed down stomp for most of our verses.  But whereas the first album was out of the gate with a harsh lo-fi sound, and the 60s / 70s influence of both heavy rock and the Beatles (a Brodsky love, I would think) shone through at any given moment, EP brings in some more background noodling, such that some tracks could’ve been included on Steve’s ‘Octave Museum’ and I wouldn’t have batted an eyelash.  Which, overall, means this comes across more as a Steve solo outing than a band, which is all fine and good since I assume he’s principle songwriter, but it’s also nice when he feels equally influenced by his surroundings vs. overpowering the tools at his command with his head-of-many-ideas.

Totally catchy with some awesomly fun song composition, but sorta’ bubblegum empty, and not as immediately impressive, sonically, as the album.