Get 'Em Tiger-s/t EP (2012/3)

 I don't really dig anthemic music these days, unless it's the Marseilles or Internationale. I dunno, there's something false about anthems in a society like ours in which the only communities most of us are part of are on the Interwebs (unless you consider indebtedness as constituting community). Anyway, I'm suspicious of rousing sing alongs, especially when they're earnest. All of which is to say that I haven't been paying much attention to music that reminds me of the Gainesville/Revolution Summer set.

Whatever, Get 'Em Tiger gives us two tracks of anthemic music I can actually groove to. Insofar as one can groove while sipping coffee with a splitting headache induced by bad wine. "Tigerlily" and "Stripes" are both good songs. The band's sound consists of  desultory guitar mixed at the same level as the march-step drumming, and a singer who declamates instead of singing. "Stripes" is a bit of a tease because you keep waiting for the tense guitar chords to explode into a flurry of hardcore or squalling noise, but it keeps marching along at the same pace. Reading the lyrics on the band's bandcamp page, I noted that they commit a cardinal sin: ending every line of their lyrics with periods. Full stops. I don't know where the fuck the practice of turning lyrics into truncated, declarative statements came from-probably the overly-earnest No Idea crew-but it's stupid. Lyrics are a form of verse-doggeral, usually, but still verse-and they're supposed to flow together. All you songwriters out there: don't put periods at the end of your lines unless what you're saying is as profound as Heraclitus' epigrams. And that's none of y'all, so if you print lyrics, don't use periods. Full stop.

If you dig Teen Suicide or Bad Liar you'll probably dig Get 'Em Tiger. Hang out with them, and buy the EP, here.