Review Summary: Messy yet structured, an immensely enjoyable listen
It’s funny how little “throwaway” releases work. Most of the time, they’re simply used to please fans of their hunger for new music, hence the unofficial “throwaway” title, however sometimes they can actually be very top-notch. Sometimes they can even be up-to-par with the artist’s other releases, making for a very rich experience.
The
Bits and Pieces EP is composed of two outtakes from the
Sensory Deprivation recording sessions that would eventually result in the
Unsound LP. The two tracks here, “Bits and Pieces” and “Cancer Sores”, are two songs that are completely different from each other. The title track starts off very colorless, with the guitars subtly collapsing over each other before crashing into a large, bleak wall of sound. The vocals drone in a dreary tone as the guitars screech to the high heavens, an interesting combination that works very well, quickly making the track a classic within the Sensory Deprivation discography.
The b-side “Cancer Sores”, as mentioned before, is the polar opposite to “Bits and Pieces”. This song is much more straight forward and messy; the drum work is like an avalanche of cymbals, which compliments the disorienting guitars. The overall tone of the song is a little more upbeat when compared to its sister track, however when compared to the overwhelmingly epic feeling of “Bits and Pieces”, it does fall a little short.
Originally put out as a teaser of sorts for the then-upcoming
Unsound full-length,
Bits and Pieces is a surprisingly solid release that contains enough enjoyable instrumentation and replay value to keep it from being a simple throwaway single. While both songs are completely different from each other, they’re both still very well done pieces of music to keep you hitting the replay button for hours on end.
