Eel Men Archetype / West Green Pirate 7″
Second 7” from this four-piece out of London. I wasn’t really able to turn up anything about the band, so I can’t tell you much about the players here or any other projects they’ve been involved in. In any case, they play pretty straightforward ’60s-influenced garage/psych pop. “Archetype” is a reverb-heavy number that sounds not unlike the slickest song you’d find in the STRAIGHT ARROWS catalog, except something about it sounds a little more intentional, like it’s been written by a pop band cosplaying as a garage band. It’s really giving me SUPERGRASS-channeling-BUZZCOCKS vibes. Same could be said of “West Green Pirate,” probably the better of the two tracks, which goes for more of a Piper at the Gates of Dawn sound and throws in a hook built around a “Be My Baby” drumbeat. I really don’t know what to think about this record. On the one hand, I want to say it’s really good—these are well-written songs that tick a lot of the same boxes a genuinely cool record would. But at the same time, something about it just left me cold. Like, I can easily imagine a world where one of these tracks appears in a Honda commercial. But that’s probably more on me than it is these dudes. So, give it a listen! Hopefully, you won’t have my same hang-ups.
