The debut EP from Lawrence, Kansas' Taryn Blake Miller, better known by her affable alias
Your Friend, offers up a shadowy mix of spectral, lo-fi dream pop and
Spector-ish, guitar-driven indie rock that falls somewhere in between the echo chamber and the open road. "Bangs" sets the tone with its languid, two-chord build that hints at
Beach House by way of
Sharon Van Etten, and then explodes into the kind of percussive and anthemic, midnight house-show theatrics that bring to mind
Bon Iver mastermind
Justin Vernon's
Volcano Choir project. The rest of the collection follows suit, with highlights arriving via the bucolic title track and the cavernous "Tame One," but the majority of the six-song set sounds like it's happening a room or two away, resulting in the same sense one gets when daydreaming through a particularly ephemeral section of a book and having to go back a page or two to try piecing together the narrative. Miller's voice tiptoes around extremes, sometimes bold and sometimes fragile, suggesting that a better indication of her prowess would be sussed out via a sweaty, hometown show packed with enthralled brethren, but the aptly titled
Jekyll/Hyde provides enough spark to keep the home fires burning, thanks in part to co-producer and
Hospital Ships frontman Jordan Geiger's willingness to go big in all of the right places. ~ James Christopher Monger