Three Imaginary Girls

Seattle's Indie-Pop Press – Music Reviews, Film Reviews, and Big Fun

The best moment on this three-song debut EP by Seattle band Speaker Speaker occurs less than a minute into "Again & Again," the pseudo-title track. In the midst of a barrage of innocuous guitar, singer-guitarist Colin McBride yells out in all his summer-punkness, "This is a love song and I just want you to know / my heart is true." The moment encompasses the oxymoronic mash of this somewhat-brilliant, somewhat-irrelevant EP (their LP will be the one to get Speaker Speaker attention): punkishly sweet, sweetly punk, think the Shins-meet-Green Day. Their 50's pop knowledge of power chords — and probably a lot of Adult Swim — meets unexpected vocal melodies that end as abruptly as a slap outside a roller rink.

"Statues/Shadows" kicks off the EP with the most fleeting of the three tracks; simple, persuasive and enjoyable, the song passes quickly like the soundtrack to a documentary about watching Grease at a drive-in. But it sets the tone for the rest of this lovely and delicate "twee-punk" record (or at least makes up for whatever tone-setting the hot pink CD casing didn't cover).

The best track of the three is the last, entitled "I Was Wrong," which really sounds like three songs put together. It changes pace as often as the stair-step machines in a Bally's, and has just as much energy in its high points as it does Tullycraft-like coyness in the chorusing comment: "I should have known that when you said you hate the Beatles that I was wrong."

Again & Again & Again isn't anything more than a fucking riot and a blast. The band is good, very good; their hand claps and "ooo-ooo"'s are on key and wonderful, very wonderful. And the album art by local graphic-Michelangelo Jesse Ledoux, famed for the cool cut-out Chutes too Narrow art for the Shins, makes the record even more an appealing a buy.