Restorations, “Strange Behavior” EP

cover-restorationsRestorations
Strange Behavior
(Paper + Plastick)

At first, I thought the fact that I’d just had a bad day influenced my listen of Restorartions‘ EP, Strange Behavior. It’s only four songs, but it seemed to go on forever, and just meandered at a snail’s pace. The whole experience was chalked up to a lousy day at work, and I waited a couple days to come back to it with fresh ears.

It wasn’t the bad day. It’s the fact that Strange Behavior is just … dull. The RIYL in the press kit namechecks Lucero and Fugazi, and those elements are indeed there. It’s simply the fact that Restorations plod. This is a plodding, thudding EP that manages to do what I consider to be the cardinal sin of music: it’s boring. Seriously. There’s so little exciting or interesting about this EP that simply saying this much was a stretch. I could find nothing about Strange Behavior or Restorations interesting enough to comment on, aside from their complete and utter lack of anything interesting.

The EP comes on a nice 12-inch slab of marble white and blue vinyl, but it hissed and popped like crazy. Several skips, too. It was a brand new record, without a single aspect of it that seemed visually wrong, so I wonder if something happened at the pressing plant. That actually seems kind of funny, given the fact that the album artwork is designed to make it look like there was some tearing and water damage. Maybe they extended it to the pressing, as well.