Paper Route - Paper Route EP

If Paper Route weren't fans of The Postal Service before they made this EP, I think it'd be a pretty fair bet to say that they'd love the unavoidable indie-electronic debut. That's not to say that the Paper Route EP is a straight ahead style rip of anything Ben Gibbard's had his hand in, but the similarities exist. Both bands make quality use of a combination of acoustic and your typical pop sounds with electronic elements carrying them along. The difference between the two is that Paper Route have an ear for integrating their programmed sounds with the instruments that they actually played. The best example of this is on the opening track "Second Chances," where the rolling drum beat sounds to be performed by a furious drummer armed with the fiercest of brush sticks. But the patterns aren't human enough to be.. well.. human. The remainder of the disc never grasps the same upbeat-yet-melancholy as hell vibe of "Second Chances," but there's certainly a lot of potential here for some quality songs. And in that comes the potential problem with Paper Route. The fusion of sliding guitars, piano textures, beautiful harmonies, and tasteful drum machine-created backbones could go down one of two roads: The first being that road that brought Postal Service to the lips of every high schooler in the country - upbeat pop songs with a bit of longing. Road two is unfortunately that of adult contemporary mediocrity. It's not that it would be bad, it just wouldn't be overly engaging. In the end, this little homespun EP has great merit, is completely worth listening to repeated times, and shows some great promise for a starting band. However, we can only recommend it by adding a plea to the band to invest more time in the stylings of their more upbeat pop leanings. [www.paperrouteonline.com]