THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2009
If you've done something that people like, the worst thing to do is to try to add to that instead of building on it. Such is the mistake made recently by Elvis Perkins In Dearland with the hasty release of the The Doomsday EP. The six-track EP is comprised of one song off of their seven-month-old self-titled release, a re-make of the same song, and four other tracks that sound like they were found at the bottom of a storage chest cluttered with dusty old tunes written once upon a lonely time.
Perkins says on his website that they "call this thing The Doomsday EP for obvious reasons". Yet short of having two tracks with the word "doomsday" in their titles and another which sounds like it should have something to do with the undead -- even though it actually has nothing notable to do with the undead -- never once does The Doomsday EP stir up feelings those end-of-the-world feelings one might expect. Throw in gypsies, a song channeling that old time rock n' roll, and another about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and you get a semi-bland folk rock stew, most likely comprised of leftovers from their rather excellent full-length release.
Leftovers, of course, are not bad in and of themselves, and musically speaking, neither is Doomsday. Ignoring the decision to include the same version of "Doomsday" featured on the EPID LP, the record consists of a fluid mix of gospel and hymnal influences supported by lead-driven folk rock. But while the tracks stand strong alone, little sense can be made out of putting them together even on an EP, throwing into question the timing of this particular release. Maybe it really is the end of the world and EPID didn't realize that squeezing in one last record wouldn't matter when we're all consumed by the blazing inferno. Then again, maybe they just wanted to seem spooky for Halloween. Too bad Doomsday isn't as scary as it used to be.-josh cacopardo
