The Natural History - The Natural History EP

You’ve done it. Your friends do it ALL the time. I’m talking about the “sounds like” game. While not a bad thing in and of itself, one begins to tire of “they sound like NWA meet Justin Timberlake with a little bit of early Sabbath thrown in” after a while. Despite any initial usefulness, boilerplate descriptions inevitably rob bands of whatever uniqueness exists in their music – especially in the case of The Natural History, who are much more than the sum of their influences and similar-sounding colleagues. Like a slew of other bands calling the greater New York metropolitan area their home, TNH have a vaguely retro, garage-y sound, aided and abetted by air-filled production values, trebly guitars and an insistent rhythm section. Yet there’s just something about the group that “Interpol dry humping the Strokes while The Walkmen get that shit up on their webcam” descriptions simply fail to do justice. Maybe it’s the extra twinge of grit in Max Tepper’s vocals, or his penchant for unconventional chord changes. Could be the sense of impassioned yearning (or something along those lines) in “The Right Hand.” Maybe it’s the propulsive, reverb-drenched drumming that puts “Telling Lies Will Get You No Where” into sublime indie-Beach Boys territory. Whoops, I fell into the “sounds like” trap myself. Yet as long as The Natural History keep putting out records as impressive as this EP, I don’t think a few positive comparisons along the way will hurt ‘em. [www.thenaturalhistory.com]