Nashville self-proclaimed power duo (wish I’d thought of that first) the Minor Toughs—Ryan Ervin (vocals, guitars, etc.) and Andy Snyder (vocals, drums, etc.)—devised an interesting conceit for the simultaneous release of three new EPs: dabble in different styles on each. This idea is mostly successful in that regard, but more importantly, they’re quite good.
Maybe You Can Make It is the most diverse, going from quiet to loud and back again; Burn Out City is ostensibly a country record; and Look Alive! is a garage/power-pop effort. The lines between the three do blur—the 15 songs are clearly cousins, and a few could fit on one or both of the other EPs—but this is annoying rock-critic quibbling. Highlights abound, but Burn Out City’s “Alien” is the twangiest on that one, featuring ghostly guitar swirl and Clara Mae Snyder and Ophelia Snyder beautifully handling the vocals; “How We Wanna Be” (Maybe You Can Make It) is a dose of heavy psych/rock; and Look Alive! fist-pumper “Supernaut, Jr” sounds a lot like early Centro-matic crossed with a little bit of Superdrag.
Consolidate these EPs and the result would be a solid, if not necessarily cohesive, LP. Then again, you could just listen to them in any order to get the same effect, so go ahead and do that. Genius. [The Minor Toughs]
—Matt Hickey
