Eulogies - Official Site, MySpace

Eulogies’ self titled release, their first, pits the sugar coated pop rock reminiscent of Pete Yorn against the bitter taste of REM’s later years. Straightforward, evenly produced, and rounded out with excellent songwriting, Eulogies comes off as delightfully extemporaneous without the befuddled pretense most pop music suffers from these days. Peter Walker’s vocals shimmer like a late night radio broadcast over fried guitars and the consistently polite backbeat; Eulogies is a flashback to rock’s short lived flirtation with sense and sensibility, a la Matthew Sweet or the Lemonheads.

Walker shadowboxes his way through the sad sack songwriter material typical to the genre. Here, however, it tastes a little original. “Suicide” maintains a faster tempo than its title implies with hooks abound. “Can’t Relate,” the catchiest ballad here, would have fit nicely on Nada Surf’s absolutely stellar Let Go.

The album leaves little to complain about, as each track barely stretches itself outside of the box Walker has written it into. A comfortable, easy to digest box, exhibiting minimal bravery in exchange for listener acceptance. However, it should be common practice for musicians nowadays to assume that “acceptable” should never, ever be mistaken for anything remarkable. Acceptable is expected, and expected is ultimately, and unfortunately, forgotten.

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