dios - Los Arboles

Since I will be reviewing dios’ first full length recording next which is self-titled, I will detail the bands biographical sketch now and spare the fluff in the next review. Plus, the Los Arboles EP is nothing special. So dios (all lowercase letters, as they love to tell you) hails from Hawthorne, California. The same Hawthorne that produced The Beach Boys and Black Flag. They are influenced by hometown heroes The Beach Boys, but also by Grandaddy and Neil Young. On to the EP… You see the fundamental problem with EP’s is that either every track is excellent and the disc suffers from being too short or the EP contains a couple bad apple tracks and that’s enough to merit permanent shelving. Los Arboles represents the latter. Fortunately, the first two tracks re-appear on their self-titled LP debut, which makes track five the only noteworthy song on this EP. Track three, “Bust out the Candy,” sounds like a nursery rhyme. And the artificially tender song, “Everyday,” possesses very little ingenuity and more sap than a Vermont sugar tree in the budding Spring. However, dios manages to raise expectations again with their final track “Tragic Lady” by structurally mimicking a John Lennon classic and infusing it with a Southern California lo-fi indie twist. Here’s a hint if you haven’t figured it out yet: dios’ self-titled full length album is a better buy and representation of what’s to come for this young band. [www.diosweare.com]