3 out of 5

Label: Kill Rock Stars

Produced by: John Goodmanson

Weee new Harvey Danger music and it’s catchy as hell and sounds like a’ slick slab o’ rock thanks to producer John Goodmanson…  And also sounds like the reformation celebration that it is, which is to say: looks like Harvey Danger, sounds like Harvey Danger, but might as well be a Harvey Danger cover band.  A generalism: that when groups take a long, unplanned break that’s generally due to exhaustion over label woes (see: the brilliant ‘King James Version’), the band never officially breaks up, but is just faced with the lump of hesitation to get back into the studio and face memories of all those previous battles.  “One day,” they say, and meanwhile fiddle with other bands or ideas or lives.  Then (so most of the stories go), a random meeting with a guitar and drums turns into a jam session, and the old groove is there, so why don’t we try this again?  But let’s keep it “cool.”  And so the sessions are recorded and the tracks sound great, but the original passion isn’t there anymore.  It can’t be.  You can’t just pick up the pieces and start running again, especially if you’re going in with the mindset that it should just be a gay ole’ time (unless that was your M.O. from the start) – the end result will forever be just a reformation celebration, and, probably, with that done, your group will break up for real soon afterwards.  Which is what happened with Harvey Danger.

‘Cream and Bastards Rise,’ off the ‘Little By Little’ album, is halfway between ‘Merrymakers’ and ‘King James,’ nabbing the direct pop-rock from the former and blending it with the witty lyrics and instrumental exuberance of the latter, which we can rely upon Goodmanson to bury way low in the mix and push the guitar, bass, and drums to awesomely head-banging levels.  (This is a good thing – John needs a myriad of instruments going to know what to turn up.)  ‘Picture by Picture,’ a non-album track, is more in the straight ‘Merrymakers’ camp, just a pleasant little rock ditty without much depth.  But again, it sounds good, and it’s definitely Harvey Danger.  Neither one of these tracks has too much depth, though, and stripped of the lyrics, you could honestly mistake either one for something off of one of the two mentioned albums.  The songs just float in the jammy realm, without tether to an emotion that fuels a full recording session.

Driving the point home is that we get a live version of a ‘King James’ track (‘Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo’), and then a ‘reprise’ of ‘Cream and Bastards,’ which is fine since it is a fun track.

Thankfully, the HD players are all skilled at what they do, so this EP is still an easy listen, but it’s good that they officially closed up shop after getting the inevitable return over with.