Replay Button is what
Five Easy Pieces should have called their self-titled debut album. Because if you get off on the first song, the country-rock barn-burner "Lovers," and you're gonna want to ride this thing till the closing charmer, "Something to Believe," and then...replay. An L.A.-based band,
Five Easy Pieces have emerged with what may very well be the best debut album of 1998. It's a powerful roots-oriented record filled with double-barreled rock & roll, country and folk influences. This record is so fully realized that it could easily pass for a great second or third record by any other fine band. The record has a lot of diversity, and really keeps you on your toes. The record also has a probable smash-hit single in "Stationary Poets," with a great riff and incredible momentum and textures. It's joyous rock & roll that will walk your street with a confident swagger. The band's primary songwriters,
Marc Dauer and
Jay Schwartz are fine craftsmen, and lay their emotions bare with a fine sense of spontaneity and dry humor that is an absolutely perfect marriage to the band's loose-limbed approach.
Five Easy Pieces truly are the thinking man's bar band. ~ Matthew Greenwald