5 out of 5

Label: Matador

Producer: Gibbs Chapman

So-called “feller filler” – the inbetween noodling on many TFUL282 albums – is a necessary part of the mashy vibe of the band, and sometimes it works perfectly, as little pauses before a stormy jangle of song.  But, I must say, it always bored me on their “classic” Matador albums, as those are recorded so low fidelity and the albums are like thirty tracks each, so it really feels like filler.  Does it help that ‘Admonishing the Bishops’ doesn’t have any feller filler?  Maybe.  The clarity of the recording is welcome, as is the focus of these songs – all recognizable hooks, all with discernible lyrics that stay on the fence between meaningful and weird (most TFUL282 does, but the albums, again, always have a few that tip the scales toward just weird or silly) – and so it’s welcome just because it confirms how solid the band is.  It’s like a sigh of relief – you like this band, and other people do too, and they’re getting good write-ups, but you have to turn your stereo up to max just to hear some scattered gems on “Lovelyville,” or “Mother of All Saints.”  This EP did come at the same time as the equally awesome (and probably their most respected album) “Strangers from the Universe,” so there’s something to the timing, and I suppose the band just found their feet by this point.  But “Admonishing” is even more solid to me than “Strangers,” which still tails off at the end into less memorable moments.  Meanwhile, this short EP fully covers the softer and louder moments of the mishy-mashy group, even giving you an idea of what their noodling does sound like at the beginning of the last track, but successfully segueing that into another notable song.

Here or “Strangers” is/are the place/s to start, if you haven’t yet.