3 out of 5

Label: Paper Bag Records

Produced by: Jace Lasek (recorded by)

Several years after the dense Animator, The Luyas reconvened for a looser recording approach, wanting to embrace improvisation to better represent their actual playing / songwriting style and “the way (they) really play.“

I’ll admit that quote makes me twinge a little. Already existing on the fringes of a dreampop scene that can be encouraging of (to me) indulgent artiness, a group essentially throwing their arms open to that is a risky venture. It’s thus to The Luyas credit that, at least initially, Says You ends up sounding incredibly vital, gearing the organized chaos of their flourished shoegaze into something equally chaotic but more delicate: both tracks on the A-side bely nothing of improv, feeling purposeful with Jessie Stein’s somewhat stream-of-consciousness lyrics canted towards clever remarks (creativity and creation seem to be some themes here) and her vocal punctuation more enthused than her usual waft. So if this is the result of improv, it’s seemed to allow for more immediacy, interestingly, and suggests what the group was hoping to capture.

But with the B-side, maybe not. The title track takes a lot of the aural miasma – aka The Luyas sound – and subtracts the momentum of the A-side; this is exactly your wandering improv track, which had some good punctuations and a generally pretty melody but ultimately goes nowhere. As a mid-EP hop this would be fine, but the two followups become more and more minimal, to the point of sounding like demos, or base melodies for future songs. These are not without their own charm, but definitely don’t close things out strongly.

With a bit more care in sequencing, and perhaps one additional standout, Says You would propose an interesting direction for The Luyas, initially casting aside my doubts on the benefits of an improvised approach. While, to be fair, further replays with set expectations allow all these songs to find their place, it’s nonetheless a bit less affecting of a place than their prior releases.