3 out of 5

Label: Sixgunlover

Producer: Jeremy Lemos

‘Cast Your Burdens’ starts off with all that is good in the Texas indie rock scene: oddly accented vocals – here half-raspy half-cooed in a Chin-Up Chin-Up style by Quien frontman Jason Butler – some tuneful but busy guitar work matched by a bustling and ever shifting but tight rhythm section, and an unpredictably quirky but instantly groovy core riff that seems all off-beat but keeps recovering and reeling you back in.  Opener ‘Brittle Britches’ features the common lyrical theme and tone throughout the EP of combining tender concepts with a wash of reality or cynical scrutiny.  As whispered/sung by Butler, even when slightly silly choruses repeat (‘Pseudo Artisan’), there’s an earnestness to the presentation that helps tie it all together and bridges the link between pleasant tune and something more; when lyrics come back around after an awesome instrumental passage on the powerful ‘Friends You Could Sell’, you feel like the group’s feeling it and not just figuring on a rousing conclusion.

Every time I put on ‘Burdens,’ I’m struck by the awesome first song, and wonder why I don’t have fonder memories of the disc.  And it’s because it’s an EP, and right after track one we drop into a two track lull of Polyvinyl-ish friendly emo diddlies.  ‘Our Home, Edna’ and ‘Words From a Beak’ hint at the twang of fellow Sixgunlovers, but otherwise trade the twists of the opener for much more accessible and easily stated to be ‘pleasant’ riffs and structure.  They’re still good songs, but as middle groundy as any given ‘good’ indie band.  You’re about to tune out completely when ‘Friends’ hits its climax, during which the pleasantness drops out and suddenly we’re hearing a mad clatter of percussion and noise, all brought to amazing life by producer Lemos, whose got the right experience – Joan of Arc, Wilco – to make this kind of tuneful chaos shine.

There’s one further track on the disc that hits those mentioned Texas rock high marks, but Quien, Es Boom! otherwise plays it fairly safe for most of the EP, making it absolutely listenable and catchy when you’re making a point to stay involved, but otherwise something of a dissapointment with the talents that are suddenly on display in a couple of ‘Cast Your Burdens Aside’s highlights.