EP reviews for March and monthly update.
Fast Fashion by Cheem released via Lonely Ghost
Back in late September I took my first trip back home to RI after living on the west coast for over a year. While there I went to see Cheem put on a pop up and perform. They played all acoustic, took requests, played covers, and everyone in the park just sort of hung out for the day. As a piece of merch, they sold these little bags of candy with a QR code to some unreleased demos. Those demos were the songs who would six months later make up the Fast Fashion EP. I’m going to do my best to review these as a finalized version, but I did listen to the original versions quite a bit so the two are still related in my mind.
Cheem offered a list of influences per track on social media and having it open while listening to the EP certainly gives context. I won’t lie and say I’m familiar with every artist listed but I can certainly hear the map to the ones with whom I am. I hear Beastie Boys immediately on “Bootleg” with its hard rock intro and all-around hip-hop flare and while I was never a WWE girl I can for sure see this one as a walk on song. “Charm Bracelet” absolutely has a Third Eye Blind chorus and is all around well composed pop. It also tells a compelling story of someone who had everything lined up to end up with the person they wanted to be with but followed what they thought they should have done instead. “Jock Horror” is a very different song for them and the metal influences ring crystal clear. When combined with the Usher-esque hook it's a great marriage of sound.
Something I couldn’t help but notice here is how much Cheem as a band has improved since 2022’s Guilty Pleasure. The nu metal elements of their overall sound are much more apparent and, in some ways, truer to the genre. “Bootleg” probably is the heaviest song this band has ever done, and the entire EP is a demonstration of their ability to not only walk the line between genres but also to do a deep dive of genres where they want to. Sam and Skye as co-frontmen have found the full extent of their chemistry here as well. Both know where themselves and each other would fit best on a track and there aren’t a lot of written vocal parts where they outshine each other or step on the other’s toes. There’s also just more confidence lyrically in general. The come at me energy the record opens with, and the inter-personal storyline wasn’t too present on the old Cheem but it’s so welcome here.
I can read your mind like my name in your notebook.
Stare into your eyes knowing you got the same look.
Got me hypnotized, hanging off of your fishhook.
I’m swimming upstream hoping to be the one you let cook.
“Motorola Razr” was my favorite of the demos and sounds like it has a whole new life here. The hook is very of the era in terms of the type of phone they’re referencing and the bridge sounding like a mobile game is a really nice touch. “Fake Fans” is like an addendum to “Snag” from the last record and sort of feels like an origin story for it. If someone’s using you for clout, of course you’re going to become the super villain portrayed on the older track. Also, just in general this has such a full length feel in spite of its short run time. “Bootleg” into “Razr” sounds like a live transition. There’s so much variety packed into just eleven and a half minutes.
When I heard these demos and “Fake Fans” live I knew this band would have a huge year. But also meeting Sam and Skye was such a pleasant experience. I went to this show with two friends who are very averse to going to shows at all, but they took a chance since I hadn’t been home in so long. This was a great day; this is one of my favorite bands right now and I’m really glad I was home on the exact weekend this was going on.
Burn Out by Mini Trees released via Run for Cover
Back to drafting with pen and paper, baby, it’s good to be home.
This Saturday I am attending one of the shows on Eliza McLamb’s headlining tour and thus will be seeing Mini Trees as well. Eliza already holds a potential album of the year slot for us and so I thought I’d check out the artist she’s touring with. Now, you won’t see this within the coming week, as this will be buried about three weeks in the que, but I wanted to get my thoughts down here before I experienced this live.
There is a very unique production to Burn Out instrumentally. It has a rather pop rock feel but doesn’t feel so restrictive to power pop instrumentation. The percussion plays off in a really fun way, the notes strummed on a guitar sound almost synth-like. It all comes together to this really grand sound. Speaking of the production, it’s crystal clear! I have these crappy earbuds right now which were recommended to me by an employee at the location I got my phone upgraded, thanks Verizon, and even on those I can hear everything. There were chords in my right ear as if I was next to the amp.
Vocally this is pop and thus has pop hooks to it. The hook on “Shapshifter” is simple, mainly only three words, but it’s also constructed from two vocal tracks and gets stuck in my head every time. The title track is absolutely gutting and talks about an unhealthy situation for all parties involved where it also feels like leaving would hurt more than staying. The resulting line is simply “I’m not worth keeping around,” which really hurts. Even with how mellow and sad it all is when something is supposed to be a sadder cut than the rest you know it. “Sabotage” is such a still moment with less intricate production and a bridge who repeats for effect. “Push and Pull” has a feel like a finale, it’s guitar driven and wonders if the narrator will ever feel like they belong. If anyone will.
There is one feature on “Cave” from Medium Build. The vocals are absolutely haunting on account of both vocalists here, pitch shifted a teeny bit, echoed with very cool backing tracks. The hook, like all the hooks on the record, is emotionally pulling. I want to believe there’s hope to a sentiment like “you’re never going back there” and Medium Build makes it all the deeper. With a piano backed bridge they give a steady reminder, not too loud, but still eternal; nothing lasts forever.
This really caught me off guard and I’m really looking forward to this show. Mini Trees is for sure an artist to keep an eye on. Medium Build released their album already if you’re reading this and of course Eliza McLamb’s record is incredible. All in all, a really great EP.
Birdwatcher by Kaleah Lee released independently
Recently heard about this artist by seeing her open for Kara Jackson in Portland. I started attempting show reviews this year, with the first being released later this week, but haven’t gotten to this show so I really wanted to cover this here.
On the intro to the Birdwatcher EP Kaleah Lee allows herself to go a little bit hard on the production side with some bird sounds, loops and vocal editing. All of the songs from here on out are pretty raw so it’s nice to see what she can do on this front from the gate. There are just two vocal stems as well as guitar on the title track, but I feel this gives the poetry room to breathe. I didn’t really receive the message of the track until giving my full attention with headphones, she’s calling herself a birdwatcher as in someone who watches life go by from your own perch as sometimes living is just too tiring.
On “The Same” we get a totally different vibe; the previous song is more introspective while here the sadness lingers in a much eerier way. This constant shifting of moods on the same scale of emotion is really impressive as it gives this EP a lot of stylistic range in just over twenty minutes. “Where’d the Time Go” expands on this even further, being much more optimistic and views isolation not as a scary thing but more as a time to reflect while there isn’t so much noise.
I’ve never heard being a people pleaser described as well as it is in “Asking Price” and if we did track picks on the EP roundups it’d be this one. In the first verse Kaleah uses this imagery of a scraped knee being an accident once and something she asks for the second time. A lot of times when you have this tendency to make everyone happy it’s easy to say to yourself; “I won’t do it next time,” but when the time comes you always do. On the second verse she talks about shorting herself and not allowing for self-care when she’s alone. A lot of the times I feel like in sharing I end up with less and when I have time to relax, I just stare at the ceiling. I also remember her talking about “Wake” and how it was written at a time when she returned from tour and almost being thrown off by being home. When I switched coasts, it took quite a while for it to feel normal waking up in my new home, of course now having lived in two different rooms and experiencing even more change it’s really helped me make the transition.
I think beyond the lyrical content itself what I like about Birdwatcher as well as Kaleah Lee right now is how raw the music is and how hungry she as an artist is. There’s no set dressing, there are very little ideas which had to be run in post, this is something only a debut could be.
HARDC0RE DRE3MZ by Rico Nasty and Boys Noize released via Sugar Trap, Atlantic and Big Beat
While not at all familiar with Boys Noize I am familiar with Rico Nasty, albeit mostly tangentially. I think with her as an artist I expect a certain level of energy and angst so to see her in a more electropop role took some getting used to. What I found as I went deeper in though is she’s only tapping into a pop mindset, lyrically she’s still on top of her game. “Vvgina” in particular is a very different song for Rico but she ends up coming up with some hard hitting but sadder lines and it makes for some real curveballs. I think I end up enjoying “H.O.T.” the least because it’s her same style and by this point I’ve more embraced this little project for what it is.
Where were you then? Where are you know?
So much fun going up, but I hate to see it come down.
Smoke in the air matches my point of view.
I hate having fun cause it reminds me of you.
While I can’t speak much to the production here I will say I think this is a good little collaboration. Simple beats, good vocal direction, all around a solid project where these two brought something unique out of each other.
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