Listening to the first song on this record made me plunk down the extra cash for the single-sided, pretty blue and white 12" version of this EP. The first song is all Kinsella arpeggios and the perfect tempo for bus-stop head nodding while no one is looking. It tugs at you just so, getting more ragged around the edges as it builds to a jarring, but not too jarring, end. Overall, this track a solid channeling of American Football that switches over to more anthemic and boisterous choruses and sets the standards high for the rest of the record.

Unfortunately, the rest of the record doesn't live up to it's own standards. It's too blatantly self-loathing and melodramatic without enough poetry to disguise it. I mean, I feel the same way, guy, that's why I buy sad-as-hell records all the time, but it was hard to listen to "I always feel so unimportant like everyone has more to give than me" and "I don't like myself, just had to get that off my chest" without thinking, "Man, get over yourself." Add in some weirdly misplaced-feeling rhymes and too much vocal vibrato and some pretty standard, at best, mid-level throwback emo and I ended up sad for all the wrong reasons. But that first song, though! So good!

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