Labels: salinas
Review by: Andy Malcolm
I wound up being a touch disappointed with this LP, which is harsh, because it’s a good listen. I think I expected more perhaps, than the slightly run of the mill poppy indie punk. It headed more down the Lemuria and Discount path, when I hoped perhaps this band would be more adventurous than that reasonably well trodden thoroughfare. There is, however, a nice blend of songs on here, opener Tennessee is a slow burner that most bands of this ilk wouldn’t dare open an LP with. It’s followed swiftly by We’d Never Agree which is resolutely “Half Fiction”-esque, a real bouncer with chirpy vocals. Of course by now you’ll have gathered that P.S. Eliot have girl vocals. That’s why they get compared to Discount and not Jawbreaker, you see. The first scorcher on this record is the mid-paced Hail Mary that booms inititally and stumbles into awesome repetition, no real chorus but the rolling rhythm hooks me totally. Great effort. It’s a couple of tracks until we get the woefully short but lovely “Like How You Are”, where the vocals really shake off the lazy comparisons of earlier in this review. And the album goes out on a high note (literally, check the vocals!) on “Troubled Medium”. These all too rare stand outs are sadly surrounded by a collection of stuff that is merely decent, and you are left wondering why they fail to extend the quality moments throughout the record. In the end, if you own Half Fiction, you are sort of looking for excuses not to simply listen to that in the first place.
If you can make it past the cheesey band name (which I like), the album name (which I don’t), the album cover (Nate Powell-esque, ‘lets get a tattoo of teens holding hands’, I’m far too miserable for that posi shit) and you are in the mood for a solid 30 odd minutes of quality indie punk then this LP will do the trick. There’s a few country-ish influences in here that I could have done without but overall, this is a good album. A good album! We don’t do ratings on this website for a reason.