It’s an exhaustive album that packs a clown car full of guttural manifestos (“Xeno Pariah”), Beatles piano ballads (“The Sudden Death of Epstein’s Ways”), and guttural ballads with the occasional piano (“Reflections In A Metal Whistle”).
English Little League continues that even-keel trend, and goes a long way in setting the group’s new/old lineup in stone.
It's patchy, but when 'English Little League' is good, it's great.
English Little League, like so many GBV albums before it, gathers a couple all-timers and a few respectably jagged pop-rockers together with several total trainwrecks and calls it an LP.
English Little League just misses greatness, but if it’s not the best album they’ve put out since early 2012, it’s certainly the most interesting, the most willing to take risks.
The three records the band did in 2012 are all stronger collections, but this is hardly a failure. One just has to search a little harder to find the good songs this time.
Nothing to hate here, but not a whole lot to love, either.
1 | Xeno Pariah 2:04 | |
2 | Know Me as Heavy 2:50 | |
3 | Islands (She Talks in Rainbows) 2:16 | |
4 | Trashcan Full of Nails 3:31 | |
5 | Send to Celeste 3:19 | |
6 | The Quiet Game 3:19 | |
7 | Noble Insect 3:24 | |
8 | Sir Garlic Breath 2:26 | |
9 | Crybaby 4 Star Hotel 1:53 | |
10 | Biographer Seahorse 3:36 | |
11 | Flunky Minnows 2:12 | |
12 | Birds 2:45 | |
13 | The Sudden Death of Epstein's Ways 2:16 | |
14 | Reflections in a Metal Whistle 1:47 | |
15 | Taciturn Cave 3:55 | |
16 | A Burning Glass 2:01 | |
17 | W/ Glass in Foot 2:20 |
#14 | / | MAGNET |