EP Review: Harpoon Forever-Life-Size Cut-Out

It’s been close to a year since Harpoon Forever has released new material, and that’s a lot of time in the musical world for a reason. The band really solidified, got to play some gigs, and above all else mature their sound. The last part is especially true with this, their debut EP Life-Size Cut-Out. That’s not to say Harpoon Forever was a particularly bratty band in the past. More that the band truly fine-tuned their sound to make all their influences balance out into the perfect collage that is Life-Size Cut Out.

Everything on Life-Size Cut-Out comes off as a little more compact than their previous works. The songs are all about two minutes long, the vocals a little less manic, and the fuzz is turned down ever so slightly to give the EP a cool power-pop sheik to the whole thing; all this from the EP’s first song “Blue Jay”. From there is the low key, small beauty of “Divine”, and the mild country tints that shade “You+Me”, complete with acoustic guitar and the electric guitar played like a slide guitar. Then Life-Size Cut-Out reaches it’s mini climax, “Cruel Story of Youth” an almost accumulation of Harpoon Forever’s sound mushed into one slightly less than three minute song. ‘90s style epic guitar riffs over sweet lyrics of growing up. “Cruel Story of Youth”, along the entire Life-Size Cut-Out EP might be Harpoon Forever’s best material to date.



Links:
Harpoon Forever's Tumblr
Download Life-Size Cut-Out here, from Bandcamp