Review Summary: The things you love know how to hurt.
Blasé Blue are a moody bunch. Nearly every track on their 5 song, self titled EP has a muddied atmosphere of distorted guitars and semi-distinctly shouted vocals, with hooks that sound like if The Promise Ring had been listening to a lot of Joy Division. Even Single Dent, which serves to break up the tracklist with a brighter and peppier outlook, is weighed down by lyrics describing loneliness and frustration. It's ultimately a winning formula, because the delivery is convincing as can be. Everything about the recording sounds fluid and natural, like you walked in on the band playing an incredibly tight and energetic live session. The confidence in the performance is otherworldly considering that it is the band's first EP.
Perhaps the strongest element of this release is the rhythmic and melodic dexterity that the band reveal through each track. The Ugliest Art smoothly flows between distant, intertwining guitar lines and massive walls of strummed chords. These Kind of Solutions and Tried Flying are both driven by killer drum performances that propel the rest of the band to even greater potency. Single Dent is really the only song that comes up short in this regard, as the song fails to morph significantly through its runtime. However, the song that anchors the release as a whole is without a doubt Red Envelopes. The track begins with a stuttering guitar riff that, when later compounded with Blasé Blue’s instrumental and vocal, reaches absolutely massive proportions. The repeated line, “The things you love know how to hurt” serves as a perfect summation of the EP’s collective message. It's a slice of catharsis that reveals a lot of this group’s potential, indicating quite the antithesis of the lyrical content here: there is a bright future ahead.
