{"id":27628,"date":"2024-06-08T05:30:07","date_gmt":"2024-06-08T09:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=27628"},"modified":"2024-06-09T12:27:05","modified_gmt":"2024-06-09T16:27:05","slug":"ep-review-speedfossil-room-with-a-vu-vol-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/08\/ep-review-speedfossil-room-with-a-vu-vol-1\/","title":{"rendered":"EP Review: Speedfossil \u2013 Room With a VU, Vol. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Nice \u2018n\u2019 crunchy guitars, clear and exuberant vocals, catchy melodies and sharp hooks: those are the main ingredients of the subgenre we call power pop. They\u2019re in ample supply on this five-song EP from Speedfossil. Guitarist Garret Vendermolen is more than talented enough to handle the lead vocals on his own, but the group adds guest lead singer Linda Bean Pardee (from The Chelsea Curve) for \u201cSweetheart,\u201d and the results are a delight. When the two trade off leads it works very well, and when they harmonize it\u2019s truly special.<\/p>\n

The tracks come rapid-fire, with little space in between; the result is not unlike a super-tight band tearing through the first five songs in their live set, saving hellos for afterward. But the instrumentation changes up subtly between each: \u201cMagic Trick\u201d folds in some nice, uncluttered organ. And the vocal harmonies are still there, just without Pardee. The character of the songs is reminiscent The Candy Butchers.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a melancholy, minor key jangle for \u201cFrozen Drops of Fire.\u201d The middle eight features handclaps and a shift to a major key; Beatlesque for sure, but what works, works. The twangy guitar solo is a nice touch as well. The intro to \u201cIRL\u201d is likely to confuse younger listeners \u2013 what are those sounds, they\u2019ll wonder \u2013 but the rest of us will chuckle inwardly. It\u2019s been done before, but it\u2019s done well here, and it makes sense in context. The (real) brass flourishes are a nice touch.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s Doing Fine\u201d takes a while to get going, but once it does, it\u2019ll draw you in. These five songs are varied enough to keep things interesting, but similar enough to display a defined character for the group. The \u201cVol. 1\u201d of the title whets an appetite for the next entry, and the press kit says a vinyl record is to come, featuring both volumes. Here\u2019s looking forward to both from this outfit.<\/p>\n

Postscript: I had forgotten until just now, but I reviewed an earlier release<\/a> from these guys a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nice \u2018n\u2019 crunchy guitars, clear and exuberant vocals, catchy melodies and sharp hooks: those are the main ingredients of the subgenre we call power pop. They\u2019re in ample supply on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27629,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,55,62,65],"tags":[4805],"class_list":["post-27628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-powerpop","category-rawk","category-review","tag-speedfossil","cat-49-id","cat-55-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27630,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27628\/revisions\/27630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}