Wow -- if you need help waking up in the morning, or if you've just gotten that job or car or guitar you really wanted and you need some good jumping-around-the-apartment music, or if you're feeling really ambivalent about some major life change and feel the need to simultaneously laugh, scream, and bawl, then
Saosin is offering just the soundtrack for your life with its five-song debut EP. Shifting quickly from quirkily sweet melodies to screams and skull-crushing guitar bombast (and sometimes combining all those elements at once), these five kids from Southern Cal are making a sound that is as fresh as ice water and louder than a medium-sized bomb. The song titles are a bit precious ("3rd Measurement in C", "They Perched on Their Stilts, Pointing and Daring Me to Break Custom"), so it's probably just as well that the CD doesn't include a lyric sheet. The words are buried anyway, under a blanket of guitars that alternately chime and roar, and drums that are both intricate and powerful. Note in particular the exploding elegance of "Seven Years," and that one about the people on stilts. Highly recommended. ~ Rick Anderson