Fake Believe, Talk Speak EP

While there’s nothing strictly wrong with the first two tracks of Fake Believe’s five-song EP, Talk Speak, I’ll admit they had me a little worried. The too-slick, hipster-ish dance-funk grooves on the verses of both “Pornography” and “Another Dead Romantic” didn’t get more than a shrug out of me — when there’s enough of a Rapture-like edge to the danciness, this sort of thing can work, definitely, but here it just seems like it’s killing time between the choruses, which are nicely fierce and rock-ish.

With “Card Homes,” though, things really start to look up. It’s a delicious, lush-yet-dark blast of synth-y pop-rock that gets manages to be ferocious and emo-boy raw while still holding onto that smooth, metallic sheen that covers the whole of Talk Speak; when the chorus comes, I want to drive fast and far away, howling along with guitarist/vocalist David Elbert’s increasingly tortured voice, and surprisingly, it hits me the same damn way each and every time I skip back to the start of the track. There’s just something about Elbert’s voice that fits perfectly here, and it’s hooked me hard.

“Warm Enough” continues in that vein, thankfully, ditching the proto-funk for more serious-sounding electro-rock as on “Card Homes,” with those Anniversary-esque, sci-fi-sounding synths and the little electronicized production touches throughout giving everything a near-future, right-around-the-corner feel. The track starts quiet and almost Portishead-like, but soon enough the melancholy gives way to bitter, just-distorted guitars, only to collapse eventually into pianos and drifting clouds, finally coming back in sky-high and coolly majestic, soaring way the hell over everything below.

Things come back down to earth for “Temporary,” which overstays its welcome just a bit, but even then I’m liking the layer-upon-layer way the band’s crafted their sound. In the hands of a different band, sure, I’ll grant that it might come off a bit self-indulgent, all the studio bits and the ultra-clean production and whatnot. On this EP, though, with these guys — hell, it just sounds like it was meant to be this way. And then, I feel the need to hear “Card Homes” again.