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MARCH 8 2011

Album Review
BNLX - EP #5.
Release Date: March 11, 2011
C+ (79/100)
With their fifth EP, BNLX continue on skewering Brit-rock clichés, but can't deliver at the level of their first four releases.
Music: 15/20
Husband-and-wife duo Ashley and Ed Ackerson's fifth short-format release in just over a year is full of the same rollicking guitars and gamut-running British influence as their first four EPs. This one kicks off with "Burn the Boats," a stereotypical brit-rock dirge full of reverb and jangly tamborines-on-cymbals and spacy synth parts—even some Industrial bits that really blend together nicely with the driving guitar. However, the record begins with a sonic balance that wanes well before its four songs are up.

Lyrics: 14/20
The record itself is comprised of three original songs (and one cover) full of straightforward—even generic—lyrics, with the English influence of course on full-display: "The Garbage Strike" is pure, unadulterated Anglophilic nonsense, replete in its delivery with proto-British accents and Morrissey croon.

Production: 15/20
Fittingly, the record feels as though it was produced across the pond, though after three fine original songs, the one thing on the EP that just doesn't work is the band's smirking version of Ice Cube's "It Was A Good Day." A droning, four-minute trainwreck that could have been a two-minute goof, the band insists on covering the rap tune in its entirety. [See Halloween, Alaska's "I Can't Live Without My Radio" for proper local hip-hop cover tongue-in-cheekery.] Still, it should find a home in the hearts and iTunes libraries of fraternity brothers and their ilk, nestled inevitably among Jack Johnson B-sides and pop-punk versions of top 40 songs—and The Gourds' bluegrass cover of "Gin and Juice" (filed, incorrectly, under "Phish").

Right, moving on, then?

Technical Proficiency: 20/20
EP #5 is a technically proficient record.

Overall: 15/20
BNLX's less-than-subtle project has already yielded some less-than-subtle results, such as "Where Is The Love" and "Blue & Gold", and the new EP has a lot of the same bits in place, but fails to deliver at quite that level. All that said—the not-so-closeted brit-rock fan inside me really wants to love this band, and hopes for more down the line.

Todd Pitman
BNLX release EP #5 this Friday, March 11 at Cause in Lyn-Lake with The Idle Hands, Satellite Voices, and Byzantine Beatbox. Their music is available at BNLX2day.com.