Artist Eulogies
Album Tempted To Do Nothing [EP]
Released 2008
Label Dangerbird Records
The Eulogies were begain in 2007 as a collaborative project between singer/songwriter Peter Walker, Tim Hutton and Chris Reynolds and signed with Dangerbird Records. Shortly after releasing their self-titled debut in 2007, the band toured alongside Film School.
Four songs is a strikingly short length of time to have in order to make an impression on me; particularly a lasting one. I don’t think that I’m hard to please at all but, personally, I’m more apt to competently judge a band from a full body of work as opposed to an abridged version via an EP.
So without expecting a whole lot, I strapped on the headphones and cued Eulogies’ Tempted To Do Nothing EP; 13.3 minutes of elegant musical motions which suggests that this effort isn’t a one-off collection of expendable b-sides with which they had nothing better to do.
“Smooth” could and sometimes has been a moniker for “bores me to tears,” but Peter Walker and company have a certain smoothness to their sound that makes it more ear candy than tedium. Two chords into the EPs first song, “Bad Connection,” and the first thing that became apparent was that there are hooks to be had here. They can be battering or they can be beautiful, they can be melodic or be rhythmic. Between melodic and rhythmic, in the case of Eulogies, they tend to be both. You can throw in lyrical, too, when Walker states his emotional and electrical case with, “And like a bad connection I wanna fix; I’ll turn my life around to make our ends meet.” Simple words, yes, but Walker wins half the battle with the careful emotiveness of his voice. Sometimes it’s less what you say and more how you say it, and throughout the span of these four songs he constructs warm and sonorous conversation; quiet and touching but pretty damned effective.
I suppose that with a bleak name like Eulogies one has got to expect a band to ruminate on the underside of things and that they probably own stock in Kleenex. But compositions of sadness, loneliness and love come and go because, let’s face it… some artists are just better at it than others. But despite the funereal elusion, Eulogies casts a lot of light into the pall by way of greatly nuanced musicianship. So glad to hear that no one here over-plays their parts, because that would be annoying and just piss me off. Instead, approximately the last 1:40 minutes of repetitive overlapping guitars talking to and not over one another in “Is There Anyone Here?” makes me smile and reminds me of the last 1:50 minutes of airy guitar charm of Wilco’s “Impossible Germany.”
Did they save the best for last on this EP? Kind of. Partnered with Silversun Pickups bass-lady and Dangerbird label-mate Nikki Monninger, “Two Can Play” and do as Nikki lends her sugar sweet vocals to Walker for a “you start it, I’ll finish it” dialogue of a dissolving union. Hearing their harmonic, “I implore you, talk to me now, ‘cause you’re wrong to hide it,” and I almost feel chastised for the secrets that I’m keeping that are none of their business. Damn.
At this point I’m over the fact that it’s an EP because Tempted To Do Nothing is a fine harbinger for Eulogies’ upcoming, full length offering, Here Anonymous. Well here they are. Anonymous? Not so much.
Tags: eulogies
Music
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