Abandoned Pools - The Reverb EP

Humanistic is quite possibly one of my favorite almost-but-not-quite over produced rock albums. In my mind, it stands up there with Blinker the Star August Everywhere, and Failure Fantastic Planet as an example of just how polished and smooth a rock album can get without sounding like a cola commercial, or frankly, a straight up pop album. So when I heard Tommy Walter was working on a new album with an EP to precede it, I was rather excited. Hearing he had made the move to Universal records, to work with people such as the A&R rep behind 3 Doors Down confused me a bit, but if Tommy could record Humanistic on a G4 in his apartment, just imagine what he could do with a major label budget. Then came The Reverb EP. The title track to the new album, a demo, few B-sides and a cover,are definitely the material I would expect on a release like this. But there is just something missing. Where is all the slick programming and processed guitars? Suddenly everything sounds like… well, like a rock record. And while I’m willing to think much of this EP may have been scraps from the full length to come, I’m still somewhat hesitant. What really disappoints me is the “Army of Me” cover. Bjork is a tough act of follow, but surely not for a former professor of Music Theory and Composition such as Tommy. It does succeed in being what a good cover should be – a reinvention of the song thru the voice of the new band, something completely their own. While it sounds very little stylistically and musically like the original, it ends up being somewhat unfocused. At times it seems to modulate strangely within the key in order to satisfy the original melody over the new rock guitar track. The fuzz bass and pounding drums are replaced with a tamer rock beat. “Armed to the Teeth,” the title track to the forthcoming album does show the most promise and keeps me hopefully for the future of Abandoned Pools. Universal rarely releases EPs, and I keep my fingers crossed that the finished product will be a return to the near over-production that I love so. [www.abandonedpools.com]