Review Summary: Kentuckian Pen Pals.
Simplicity and consistency are necessary. Underneath even the most obtuse, tangled interweaving of characters, motives and interactions in any form of art, a central thesis and point for all of the action needs to exist within all of it. Usually it's the quest for love, philosophical and existential understanding of ones surroundings or the difficult in simply surviving on some sort of consistently fulfilling or passable existence as a human being ( For example, "House of Leaves" is a romance cobwebbed under a tense horror plot about a shape shifting home and "Moby Dick" is a 700-page allegorical novel about the whaling industry hidden under the primary narrative drive of murdering a whale). Flare Jeans live up to that ever present motif but without an immense amount of subtext (i.e. next to none) and instead opt for simplistic Indie/Emo songs about girls and being alone.
Moving past the startling original premise, the songs that are contained within this EP are ripe with a plethora of old tricks and common, oft-maligned traits of a band of this ilk: obscure sound clips, reversed loops of music, lower than the basement vocals that you really have to try and hear anything more than an enjoyable song filled with mumbling and rough production. Then again, perfection isn't the purpose here, especially given the fact that tour EPs are nothing more than a sampler to give to people that more than likely feign interest in your band. Moving on, the songs themselves are catchy and sturdy in their structure, distorted guitars & bass casually plodding along through it all, with subtle yet concise drums that remind me a bit of Midwest Pen Pals if they were not frenetic in the least (that's most likely because Garrett from Midwest Pen Pals plays the drums for this band as well.) The vocalist give off this alternate universe Davey Von Bohlen who simply lets his voice glide over these tracks with very little effort, making effective use of the less than musically dense soundscape that he has to cooperate with such as on opener "Clouded Head" and it's loose environment, while songs like "French Movies" and "Medicated Youth" keeps him flexible over more varied segments, replete with xylophone on the latter song with his good, though not necessarily wide range.
Other than a lack of variety, this is one in a long line of simple, short & sweet musical ventures that will eventually go by the wayside once Flare Jeans begins to dole out further releases but really shouldn't be. The amount of potential instilled within this band's style of no frills but not quite cookie cutter Emo tunes is fairly large, though that's speculative. At least it isn't another "Twinkle-core" band from the Midwest.
