Speedy Ortiz - Sports EP
Rating
RIYL
HeliumPolvo
Dinosaur Jr.
Release Date
06/05/2012
Tracklist
1. Basketball2. Indoor Soccer
3. Curling
4. Silver Spring
5. Suck Buddies
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Some things just sound like they shouldn’t work. The album in question here, Sports EP, is an example of this. Speedy Ortiz is a Massachusetts-based indie rock band with an angry, quirky female vocalist in Sadie Dupuis, and this EP is about sports. To top it all off, the band labels their genre as “lol”-fi. So far, the band has two strikes against it. While there is some potential for some charm factor, the oddity of this EP is that once the listener presses play, there is no “swing-and-a-miss” here; instead, these East Coasters have practiced, suited up in full pads, and are ready to rumble.
This EP is chock full of summertime jams; there is no better way to put it. The music is hard hitting yet melodic indie rock with a decidedly 90s flair. The lyrics reference sports and sex (when Sadie isn’t spewing her own brand of idiosyncratic vitriol), and the EP flies so quickly and goes down so smoothly, that the replayability factor is rather high. “Basketball” starts off the album with the highest concentration of sports references and showcases what listeners have in store for their ears. The most glaring feature is that fantastic guitar tone, which sits perfectly between grungy and fuzzy at the same time. The rest of the band is certainly skilled and quiets any notion that this is simply an excuse for a feminist frontwoman to have too much fun behind the mic. This EP is a full band effort that is merely aided by the talents of its estrogen-inclined vocalist. The album highlight is surely “Silver Spring,” which features a climactic hook that has yet to leave my cranium (trust me, I’ve tried to get it out).
To be fair, EPs are difficult to grade, as sixteen minutes of music is usually insufficient to fully grade the abilities of a band to convey anything other than a few music ideas. Thankfully, these Massachusetts rockers are content releasing a fun summer-y EP. More music would have been preferred, but if this is a taste of what Speedy Ortiz is capable of, here’s hoping they are already at work on a full length.
--Nick Senior
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