“All the people on the streets are burning up/The tears of fear are falling down.” With that and a surprisingly nasal Catty Tasso vocal performance, The List is off and running on some pretty shaky ground. But then the musicians take over, with Tasso and Nachito Insignares thrusting their guitars against the amps for an appropriately distorted wall of chunky noise and Rob Gwin and El Pipe’s deceptively simple backbeat giving the sonic crush its due meter. Tasso’s voice, while not exactly chameleonic, has enough tonal range so that the whining drops off and she can just as easily mime Kim Deal as Karen O. And while the May Fire is no YYYs or Breeders (and certainly no Pixies), this is pristinely ragged rock and roll comfort food, one fit for fans of punk, pop, alternative and everything in between.
The List is the third in a trilogy of EPs released by the San Francisco band in the last twelve months. I missed their 2006 debut, the full length, Right and Wrong, but sampled their goods from Plastic Army and La Victoria. As a companion piece to those two EPs, The List doesn’t really close anything off, but offers more of the same, though in a darker package. The brittle pop melodies, surf rock swing and exuberant performance all remains, but the tone is a bit grimmer, the expressions a bit jowlier, the instruments a bit edgier.
Following straight-faced and haunting la-la-la’s, leadoff "Burning Up" segues smoothly into “No Clone.” It’s either an ironic statement or simply half-hearted, but when Tasso drones, “I’m on a riot,” I can’t help but wonder if the emotive detachment was intentional—it’s certainly not bold and brash enough to inspire a riot from the listener. The title track is better, coasting on a punchy bassline and yowling guitar echoes. “Under the Wave” is arguably the disc’s catchiest track, a pure pop melody propelled by a chugging spike guitar riff (and features Tasso’s cleanest vocal performance that finds her actually “singing”). It’s what the label pop-punk ought to mean. “Red Unicorn” begins with a piano dropping two note chimes in a four part loop. It’s a mid-tempo track, but one with as much force as anything on the first half. And Tasso is at her too-cool-for-school best as she struts through closer, “Mother/Father,” a track anchored by eerie atmospherics but with an urgency that builds to a thunderstorm.
After some early mediocre moments, The List settles into its groove and emerges a grabber. Though only twenty-one minutes long, it’s as good as any of the May Fire’s last two quickies, and perhaps even more assured and methodical. The songwriting has sharpened, and the faint disco-bubble beats deliver plenty of hooks, and even if the lyrics still lack shape, the band sounds as centered and complimentary as ever. I await a future full length from them (and I’ll probably have to catch up on Right and Wrong, too), but until then, The List will serve.
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