Review Summary: Three great new tracks ! Rabbit Junk are you kidding ? We're starving !
Instead of releasing a new album, Rabbit Junk has now been feeding his fans an average of two songs a year for three years: "Lucid Summations" and "What Doesn’t Kill You Will Make You a Killer" in 2011, "Bubble," "The Boy with the Sun in his Eyes" and "own up" in 2012, "Break Shins to This" and "From the Ashes" in 2013.
With their last album "Project Nonagon" dating back to 2009, things are starting to feel a bit weird to say the least. The band is still alive and kicking, in fact it kicks some serious ass, but too rarely and sporadically for us listeners to get a feeling of substance or of continuity. Is it a serious problem when the material released is great ?
In any case, it is not that unannounced "Pop that Pretty Thirty" EP which is going to change the curve Rabbit Junk seems to be now following, that is, writing and releasing ultra-catchy but somehow shallow new songs from time to time until they run out of ideas or become boring because this approach makes it harder and harder for the listener to get a feeling of wholeness which would help giving the music some more depth.
Indeed, if the three new tracks of the EP are actually great, the band also shows, to some extent, some difficulties to truly renew itself or give a new dimension to its music. "If What Doesn’t Kill You Will Make You a Killer", "Break Shins to This" and "Pop That Pretty Thirty" had been released at the same time on a unique album, that last one wouldn’t give the feeling that you’ve heard it before so much.
In any case, it’s a pleasure to hear those three new tracks, two of which are unexpectedly heavy. "Pop That Pretty Thirty" is a delightfully deafening mix of "What Doesn’t Kill You Will Make You a Killer" and "Break Shins to This" dominated by the voice of sum grrl, a distorted sample of JP Anderson saying “Pop That Pretty Thirty” and a heady threatening electronic melody which gives the song a very compelling atmosphere. Ominous, violent, noisy and melodic it’s an incarnation of Digital Hardcore.
"Precipice" sees JP Anderson singing a heady melody over a ultra-heavy riff drowned in electro sounds until the song reaches a more ethereal chorus. It manages to convey a very agreeable atmosphere during its five minutes long, telling over and over again the story of an obstinate struggle reaching some kind of epiphany, relief, beauty, satisfaction. Rabbit Junk = Existential Music. On the whole an awesome track.
"IDONTGIVEA***" is the seemingly necessary brighter/lighter track which allows you to release some pressure. It’s fun and a hook in itself but it somewhat destroys something that had been built up by the two previous ones. The feeling that there is an important threat, that something is at stake and thus that something matters in this world. We would have been happy to see those explored a little longer.
After these three solid tracks comes the remix/cover from a highlight off Rabbit Junk’s second album "C.R.U.T.C.H." which seems totally pointless. It isn't enough that it can’t hold comparison to the original, it does harm to that latter by reusing vocals and sounds from it and remixing them in a way which does not put them under a great light. Strange.
As if the resemblance between "What Doesn’t Kill You Will Make You a Killer" and "Pop that Pretty Thirty" wasn’t obvious enough, "Clock that Pretty Killer" offers us the unique opportunity of hearing the vocals from the former nicely put on the latter through this mash up of the two songs. Expectedly it works fine. Yes, and the vocals from any of the songs off Linkin Park’s "Hybrid Theory" are interchangeable with any from "Meteora". And ? Would we want to hear "Numb" with the lyrics of "In The End" ?
You certainly think this reviewer is being picky and too critical for such a good band and a great EP which you can download for free on the record company’s website. Well, it’s also because this review is fueled by frustration and could be written in one sentence: Rabbit Junk ! We want more ! Sapristi !
