5 out of 5

Label: Quarterstick

Producer: June of 44?

The Anatomy of Sharks EP sort of represents what I hated about June of 44 initially, and why I madly rejected their music, and what I now love about the band.  Namely – it doesn’t try to fake you out.  There’s a chosen theme to the band and lyrics (that weird nautical theme) but it doesn’t turn into a joke, and their lyrics sit at a level of clarity and layering that makes them accessible but not stupid.  The music doesn’t build to massive crescendos or strum you down lovely lanes, they find their groove and then they play around it, ebbing and flowing and greater or lesser volumes.

The first, ten minute track, “Sharks & Sailors,” just did me in at the time.  I was just getting into a lot of Chicago post-rock stuff, a lot of instrumental stuff, and a ten-minute track spoke to me of some kind of slow climb to an explosive change-up of some time.  Throw me a twist with this track – which starts out at its heaviest, then slows down for a stretch, then comes back to about the same point.  It just didn’t work for my brain then… maybe it took listening to a ton of Doug Scharin’s organic work as HiM, or getting over whatever indie-itchiness I had back then – feeling like Quarterstick was a too-cool-for-school label or whatever nonsense.  But I’m glad I did come back, because the meeting of the minds that was June of 44 produced a specific breed of Chicago rock that really doesn’t sound quite like any of their peers, though it has elements of all of them – the groove of Tortoise, the angularity of Slint.

And Anatomy of Sharks, as mentioned, captures this in a perfect nutshell.  After that amazing first track, which lulls you up and down and leaves you on an amped up note, there’s a pulsing instrumental track to follow – Boom – that hangs around for just long enough to set your ears straight for a screamier affair with the last track, “Seemingly Endless Steamer,” which does have an ongoing feeling to it as the title suggests, Jeff Mueller’s vocals staying at a throaty, almost emo-y shriek for the song’s 6+ minutes, but it breaks out the angularity at just the right moments to keep the track stuttering along, again with the ebb and flow.

The longer June releases push this feeling around for 40 minutes are achieve a different effect, but Anatomy of Sharks is a perfect punch in the butt – a slice that gives a perfect picture of the band in a perfect quantity, without it – at all – feeling like something to just slake your thirst or whatever.  It’s only 3 tracks, but it’s a full affair.