Chicago's punk scene seems so incestuous at times that if there weren't so much camaraderie going on, visions of a
Jerry Springer chair-throwing you-stole-my-bandmember episode wouldn't really seem so far-fetched. As such,
the Falcon have arrived and with them come yet another mixture of Windy City veterans, this time consisting of Brendan Kelly, Dan Andriano, Neil Hennessy, and Todd Mohney. With Kelly's distinctive rasp at the helm,
the Falcon will be hard-pressed to avoid references that don't compare their sound to
the Lawrence Arms. That's just how it goes. On their debut EP -- which endearingly bears two titles just like every song -- the guys bring it brash, fast, and oh-so fun. The record is obviously a labor of love, but in that carefree exuberant way and not the painstaking "overthink everything" way. The guys aren't really doing anything that hasn't been heard before, but they're obviously having such a good time doing it that listeners will have difficulty not following suit. It's just simply a raucous, sweaty time from the opening explosion of "Huffing the Proverbial Line Off the Proverbial Dong" all the way through the up-and-down "Building the Perfect Asshole Parade," the latter of which is damn near impossible to sit still during without contributing your own "Woah!"s. Sandwiched between these tracks are impassioned songs featuring dark rhythms, wry attitudes, rollicking beats, garbled lyrics, and even a quasi-acoustic ballad to home (emphasis on quasi). The production isn't great (the liner notes state it was "hilariously recorded, mixed, and produced for zero dollars" in, among other places, various living rooms), but that only adds to the EP's charm. Hennessy even has an amusing scream in track one that had to be included, since it happened during drum tracking and couldn't be taken out. Fans of Chicago punk groups somehow tied to
Slapstick (namely, uh,
the Lawrence Arms) will welcome
the Falcon with open arms, while everyone else -- well, you probably have boring taste in music anyway. ~ Corey Apar