A frustrating record that starts off strong, loses momentum, and the doubles down on momentum loss, undermining what could have been a perfectly solid little EP by running on too long.
Tarot Classics leads with two of the band's best, catchiest songs, wielding late-Pixies-via-early-Weezer soar and crunch to land a solid one-two punch.
Do things go downhill from there? Sure, a bit. The Pixies debt gets even deeper with a chiming intro straight out of Holiday Song, a catchy enough little beat revs up and then... the song kind of just spins in place. It's a little disappointing, but fine, headbobbale enough, a perfectly good 3rd song filler on a 4-song EP. Finally, we wind down to a comfortable close with Drinking Problem, a minimalist little chugger that hums with a sentimental pulse right out of Astro Coast highlight Anchorage. Nice little set of songs. Eagerly awaiting the next album Surfer Blood.
Except it's not over.
The next thing you know you're listening to two unimaginative remixes of the record's least interesting, most recent-in-the-tracklist songs, so that you end up with 16 samey minutes to close the disc. It's classic subtraction-by-addition, harkening back to my oft-espoused claim that the sacred OK Computer would be better off without one of its last three songs. Sometimes less is more, sometimes you quit while you're ahead. Look at it this way, in this case its the difference between an album that is half great and an album that's one-third great. By the time the last track winds down, you've been listening to boring music for 16 minutes (instead of 8) and your lasting impression is not how great those first two tracks were, but how boring this 23 minute EP was.
Maybe I'm a crazy person that listens to albums the way people watch movies. Maybe more is always better. Hey, two free remixes! But I'd rather have one good album than two mediocre songs 3/5
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