Review Summary: My condolences, but this probably is not what you want to hear.
Say goodbye to those tightly wound catchy riffs that struck you so violently; not just the first time you heard them, but every time. Forget those maddening sing-along choruses that practically defined that one summer trip you took with the guys. And don’t even think about referring to that compact structure you could play over and over without tiring. Sorry, it’s not here. This isn’t
Post-Nothing or even
Lullaby Death Jams EP. While
All Lies EP encompasses many of the same qualities (the raw energy, the fervent yelling, the passionate percussion),
All Lies is Japandroids without structure or discipline.
While it may sound intriguing, it’s not something worth listening to many times over.
All Lies takes some of the great qualities that Japandroids will later gain, but doesn’t wrap them in a neat little package. Instead, the duo from Vancouver wraps this noisy little present in newspaper, and it falls apart before you receive it. You still assure Japandroids you like it, but looking back it’s nothing compared to that gift you received recently. OK, enough with the conceit.
All Lies doesn’t take too long to become irritating with opener “Couture Suicide.” Sporadic yelps here and there plague this track, in a bad way. “To Hell With Good Intentions,” displays some of the worst lyrics from Japandroids, all centered around the premise/chorus, “My dad is bigger than your dad.” Luckily, Japandroids don’t totally miss.
All Lies comes to a strong finished with the much more concentrated, “Press Corps.” This little ditty acts as a compelling prophet of the future, and it’s to Japandroids great benefit that they heeded its’ prophecy.
For the most part,
All Lies sounds incredibly sloppy and misshapen. Japandroids didn’t seem to have much direction or objective when recording this, and it shows. Their bright future makes the flaws all the more obvious. Even as an EP,
All Lies isn’t very promising. This is neither the place you want to start with Japandroids, nor would you want to end your Japandroids collection with
All Lies. On second thought, don’t bother putting it in the middle, either.
