The Finale EP Review of 2022: With Saweetie, Tigers Jaw, Busta Rhymes & 100 Gecs

THE SINGLE LIFE EP - Saweetie

Oh Saweetie, how I've wanted to be a fan for so long. I love her hilarious attitude (and Twitter feed) which so often seeps into songs that have funny and memorable concepts. Unfortunately, save for a single here and there I haven't been that big of a fan of her music thus far as the production and songwriting often fall so short of the material that inspired it. The opener to this EP is an absolutely perfect example. DON'T Say NOTHIN has a great idea at its core as Saweetie takes aim at those who sleep with her and then immediately spill that business to Twitter. The conclusion she settles on for them is funny and the performance is sharp, but everything else about the song is a huge letdown. The beat is clunky and underwhelming and the hook is simple and outright annoying. Another good example is P.U.S.S.Y which flips the same sample as Biggie's Juicy (and MANY other songs) but delivers the song's core message of pussy running the world through a series of really awkward and fumbling melodic refrains. The song doesn't have any of the confidence or swagger you'd expect given the subject matter I'm not sure at all why this choice was made artistically. The best and most thematically focused song on the record is HANDLE MY TRUTH which opens with Saweetie's confession that she's not perfect but is more about everyone else accepting that about her rather than her accepting that about herself. Despite a kind of annoyingly long outro the song maintains its thematic focus and has a sonic experience that actually goes alongside it. This feels like the exact same outlook I've had on so many Saweetie projects in the past and it's getting a little tiring repeating it. I don't know if she will ever get over the hump and find collaborators who can bring out the best of her personality, or if she even wants to. But in the meantime, this feels like another collection of missed potential. 4.5/10

Old Clothes - Tigers Jaw

I regret not covering Tigers Jaw's new album last year as their emo-flavored indie rock has always been right up my alley and I liked the band in their prime, I just ended up being too busy to write a full review on it. I wanted to remedy that by at least touching on this new EP of tracks which comes from the same recording sessions. That started because of the wonderfully hooky little title track from the project whose hook stuck with me for a while as the jangly instrumental grew on me in the background. While there wasn't anything else here that impacted me quite as much and there's a bit of a whininess to it that certainly takes me back, I do have to say I enjoy these songs for the most part. My favorite of the other songs is Reckless, which has a bouncy rock energy to it but with a pretty anthemic emo styling to the performance that feels like the band hitting their essence head-on. I've come around to the shorter, more melancholic closing track Waltz as well and as a whole, I think this is a solid set of songs. The band isn't really re-writing the book on anything but hearing them continue to pursue good ideas this long into their career is still very enjoyable. 7/10

The Fuse Is Lit EP - Busta Rhymes

I was interested in this EP because it's been a few years since Busta Rhymes last formal release, an Extinction Level Event sequel in 2020. Not that I thought that record was the best material of his career or anything, just that it was nice to have him back not only popping up on dozens of projects I've heard in the past few years but also dropping his own stuff. So I was interested in what direction this new EP might take. Turns out it's a little all over the place stylistically. The sounds of classic hip hop, contemporary hip hop, reggae, and more appear across just this 15 minutes of music split between five pretty distinct but inconsistent tracks. The opener is the song that most directly features Busta both rapping two verses and shouting along the hook and I think it's pretty catchy. The 2nd track is a posse cut but just like he has in pretty much every feature he's done this year, Conway The Machine steals the show. Unfortunately, from that point on the quality of these songs falls off pretty hard and they kind of start to lose the core appeal of hearing Busta's word-bending verses and spend a lot of time doing other far less interesting things. There are also some really weird production choices like the ugly stiff drum beat on Hot Sex, Pt. 2, and or the keys on Bulletproof Skin that are mixed so low they basically aren't there. Thankfully, Run It Up is an improvement that leaves the project off on a slightly better taste. I don't love this EP but it isn't a total mess and in the moments when Busta Rhymes actually gives himself the chance to get into a groove he shows off exactly why he has the artistic longevity he's achieved. 5.5/10

Snake Eyes EP - 100 Gecs

Did you know 1000 Gecs came out in 2019? That feels crazy because the duo of Dylan Brady and Laura Les really have captured the minds of hyperpop queers ever since. Accompanying the long-awaited confirmed release date of a new record the band dropped these 3 tracks as an EP that presumably will all end up on the record. The opener Hey Big Man has become a live staple for Gecs and was a highly anticipated drop. Despite some changes to the song's format, I am absolutely blown away by this final version. Not only do I think it's the best song they've released since 1000 Gecs I also think it adds quite a bit of legitimacy to the argument for working songs out in a live setting because they arrived at an absolute banger. So with that slam dunk in the bag, how are these other two tracks. Torture Me sports a Skrillex feature and I like the start it gets off too with jittery but still very catchy refrains that remind me of some of the melodic moments on a song like Ringtone. Unfortunately, the song closes on a kind of embarrassing half-breakdown that comes out of nowhere and doesn't really fit in with the rest of the song. It sort of seems like they felt the need to provide something crazy because Skrillex was working on the song but the results are just a clunky ending that has nothing to do with the rest of the song. Finally, there's Runaway a closer which got me emotionally at first because it really sees both Laura and Dylan saying fuck you to their various haters and the people who hurt them and empowering isn't necessarily a direction we've ever heard from the pair before. But with more listens I kind of realized that the production is clunky and a little ham-fisted in a way that so few Dylan Brady songs have been in the past. The thudding distortion just doesn't have the same pop as most Gecs bangers and it's especially easy to hear if you listen to it back to back with Hey Big Man. While these songs aren't perfect there's a messiness and chaos to listening to just this short 6 minutes that undeniably gets me excited for more Gecs coming down the pipe, even if I'm hoping that the final two songs on this EP end up being some of the weakest on the eventual album. 6/10