Though
Smallmouth is
Scrawl's third LP, it's still the sound of a band not 100% comfortable in the studio. Confidence isn't lacking in Marcy Mays' songwriting, however, which continues to improve. The angular jab of "Time to Come Clean" purges guilt while remaining defiant ("I want to look you in the eye/ I have talked behind your back") and in "Charles," the woman wears the pants ("Put out or get out, that's the way it goes"). The band's crafty folk-punk is served up with rare emotion, closing out with a biting version of "I Need You" that is just as gripping as
Eurythmics' original. The song's vulnerable-yet-sturdy theme is so fitting for
Scrawl that it would be easy to mistake it for a Mays original. ~ Andy Kellman