Earlier this year, London pop rock quartet Stricken City released their free/donate Animal Festival EP to ease the wait for their debut full length expected to be out sometime this fall but before that, they released a mini album by the name of Songs About People I Know. Lo-fi quality track "Gifted" starts the album with Rebekah Raa's melancholic solo vocals before the band enters to liven things up on the energetic "Pull The House Down". "Small Things" employs a time-tested method of consecutively introducing each instrument before Raa enters on vocals and korg pondering a life of boredom. The song has some of my favorite music moments, featuring several little melodic moments both vocally and instrumentally on guitar and korg. "Killing Time" shambles about like one pacing about in a room emphasized by Raa's repeated rhythmic "eh's" like the ticking of a clock before gaining a sort of freedom with Raa's lyrical rubato against strict time-keeping drum beats and manages to experiment with varying time itself without drawing undue attention to itself. "P.S." with its brassily anthemic intro: "You're so boring/You're so normal/I don't ever want to talk to you again", Raa wages full out war on boredom and its perpetrators but in a manner that's charmingly sweet and drives the sentiment home with an appropriately placed modulation. "Sometimes I Love You" has Raa soloing over a blanket of harmony and when she makes use of dissonance, you really feel the tension she conveyed with beginning lyrics: "Sometimes I love you/Sometimes I hate you/Sometimes I don't know what to think". "Five Metres Apart" follows the rather somber preceding track with a resolute declaration of love with the similar build up fashion of "Small Things". Album closer "Terrible Things" parallels the start if only in its intense focus on Raa's beautiful vocals. Combine that with an accompanying piano part that's amazing in its own right and you've got dreamily wistful masterpiece that's bound to make your heart swell and break at the same time.
The mini-album gets its name only for the its length. Each tracks is almost depressingly short, the longest clocking in at about 3 and a half minutes but the musical ideas are as developed as some of the most drawn out concept albums. The songs artfully swing between shiny happy-go-lucky party pop and the brittle-as-glass emotional introspection you might find in seasoned singer/songwriter repertory. The way Raa's voice works with the band is so effortless hypnotizing that you're left hanging on her every word and vocal riffs. Don't be surprised if you find yourself repeating it from start to finish several times.
Listen to the mini-album in its entirety here:
