The Lotus Effect, Rabbits & Royalty EP

Normally, I get pretty annoyed when a songwriter just comes out and tells you what a song’s about; to my mind, that takes some of the joy out of the music, removing the personal interpretation completely from the equation. I mean, sure, if you think a song’s about X, but the songwriter says that, “no, it’s actually about Y,” you can be stubborn and hold tight to what you think…but you’ll be wrong. Because, well, the guy who wrote the freaking song knows best what it’s about, right?

So yeah, when a band comes up, unasked, and declares “this song is about Pat Tillman,” like The Lotus Effect do with regard to “Fireflies,” the mid-point track on the band’s debut EP, Rabbits & Royalty, my kneejerk response is a groan and a facepalm. Except that in a weird bit of synchronicity, I’d been reading Jon Krakauer’s excellent (so far, anyway) book about Tillman, Where Men Win Glory, and I’ve always been somewhat fascinated by the football star-turned-Army Ranger’s tragic, often-appropriated story.

It helps, too, that “Fireflies” is the best song on here by a mile, poignant and yearning but still heavy and crunchy. I’d liked it even before I knew what it was actually about, so knowing the background of the song adds to it, surprisingly, more than I’d figured it would. It starts off delicately but revs up steadily as it rolls along, incorporating some impressively intricate guitar lines and rhythms.

And I’ve got to hand it to the band, as well, for putting their money where their mouth is, at least with regard to this particular track — according to their Website, they’re donating a portion of the proceeds from sales of this EP to The Pat Tillman Foundation, which works to help veterans and their families (and The Pablove Foundation, which fights to find a cure for childhood cancer).

Opening tracks “Warhol” and “Mercucio” are fairly impressive, too, both decent chunks of metal-tinged alternarock. I like the little touches in the former, like the bit of guitar-noise in the break, and the song’s got a cool confused/desperate vibe to singer Dre Giles’ vocals. The chorus of “Mercucio” is damn cool, although the band lets the energy drop a bit much in the verses in-between; still, it’s a pretty good start for this band.

If I’ve got a complaint about Rabbits & Royalty, it’s that it feels like the band’s trying to do too damn much at once. I can hear the prog-rock influence in there, definitely, but I think there’s something to be said for laying back and not trying to fill every spare second on a track with a new riff, a new sound, a new rhythm. Several of the tracks hit that point, particularly “Simple Pages,” which hopscotches all over the place in terms of tempo and feel.

In “Fireflies,” for example, there’s a drum bit repeated about 2/3rds of the way through where it sounds like drummer Gabe hits some of those RockBlock things — it’s obvious that the guy’s a damn talented drummer, but there’s really no need to throw that extra little sound in there, y’know? It’s only a distraction from the song, which was unfolding just fine without it.

The best proof that the band doesn’t need to fill every nook and cranny, actually, is the final track on the EP, an acoustic version of the aforementioned “Fireflies,” where Giles sings alone over a solitary piano. It’s absolutely, heart-crushingly gorgeous, an impassioned howl out in the darkened night, just pain and uncertainty and sorrow all thrown down on tape without any kind of extraneous filler. The band demonstrates handily that they don’t need to throw all the junk in the pile.

In the end, the EP’s not perfect, but it’s a damn good start, and I’m liking where these guys seem to be headed; tighten it up a bit, and it’ll be golden.