Restorations - Strange Behavior EP

Restora­tions
Strange Behav­ior EP
Paper + Pla­s­tick; 2010

There’s some­thing about the four tunes on the Strange Behav­ior EP that strike me as slightly off-​kilter and off-​the-​mark. I count myself a fan of the dis­parate influ­ences at play with the music of Restora­tions, but I’m not sure the band ever really con­nects the dots between them. The bulk of the vocals are of the gruff, punk, Chuck Ragan/​Hot Water Music vari­ety, but they don’t always coin­cide with the melan­choly, Old ‘97s style of alt-​country like you think they would. If I were to haz­ard a guess, I would say it’s because the songs never really pick up any energy or steam to match the big emo­tions on dis­play. It’s a damn shame because I really wanted to like this record (espe­cially because it arrived on my doorstep as an elec­tric blue 12”).

“Title Track” proves to be a strong opener, com­plete with solid gui­tars, shuf­fling drums, and a rum­bling, ram­bling trou­ba­dour feel to lyrics like “And you could feel it in the fog /​the death of the longest fall /​such strange, strange behav­ior /​to be here at all.” With “Lin­ear Notes,” we hear the lone exam­ple of the sort of vol­ume and inten­sity this group can cre­ate: the sound is larger, the mid-​tempo pac­ing almost reaches a good rock feel, and the group dis­plays a good feel for dynam­ics. This song is eas­ily my favorite, if only for the fol­low­ing line: “I’ve been spin­ning these cir­cles /​just look­ing for the answers /​but the answers don’t speak up /​with the ques­tions so loud.”

The record loses steam for me on the sec­ond half, espe­cially with the tepid bal­lad that is “The Reap­pear­ing Amer­i­can Hobo.” The music is rather stale, and the lyrics don’t quite make sense, as it recalls a con­ver­sa­tion with a woman who seems to be home­less, but the singer can’t con­nect with her because he admits that he doesn’t like Ker­ouac. “Doc­u­ments” brings the project back up to par, com­plete with stir­ring country-​rock gui­tar work and greater atten­tion paid to the devel­op­ing the dynam­ics of the song. I also dig how the omi­nous lyrics per­son­ify a city that’s crum­bling, but it can’t fig­ure out how to rebuild (even if it could).

Inevitably, the Strange Behav­ior EP comes across as bits and pieces of a full-​length con­cept record that hasn’t quite been fully devel­oped. The char­ac­ters pre­sented in the lyrics have poten­tial, but they’re never allowed the room nec­es­sary to grow prop­erly, leav­ing every­thing feel­ing stunted. I do want to hear more from Restora­tions, if only because the band has some rather good ideas that I want to see flour­ish in the right environment.