Posted on: September 20, 2010 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Hey, I had no idea that Ed would be doing rap no this EP. To be honest, there was little that told what type of music that the EP had on it on the front cover. The style of the EP’s first track, “Beautiful Friend”, is very Spartan. The only thing that is a constant during that track are the vocals of Mecija. The flow seems a little rushed at points, and while the backing beat supports eir at all times, there seems to be a harshness with Mecija’s voice that is a little too sharp for the more dreamy, electronic backing of “Beautiful Friend”. When I saw the runtime of “For Cooolidge”, I thought Mecija was trying to sneak in a skit for a five track EP.

Luckily, this is a very quick track that continues the same trends that opened up this EP. This means that the vocals are pushed out too far from the rest of the instrumentation, and the backing beat does not seem to mesh well with the fast and furious style of Mecija. “Syreeta” is a track that feels even more sedate than anything else that was previously on the disc; when Mecija slows down eir flow, everything seems to mesh a whole hell of a lot better than it has done previously. There is a much more organic feel to “Syreeta” than the rest of the songs on this EP; the drumbeat is pegged at a level that is equal to the level of Mecija’s vocals on this track.

The bleak outlook of “Syreeta” is the first track that can be called a hit without any serious flaws. “Poor Boy” starts out with a set of vocals setting the stage, in a way that blends throat singing with “OK Computer”-era Radiohead before allowing the acoustic to surge up and supplant it. Very few rap songs that I know of use such a heavy acoustic styling as Mecija on “Poor Boy”. This distinct style is something that should increase Mecija’s work in the eyes of all critical listeners. When there is such a different blend to the rest of rap music, someone will make an impression. Mecija does just that with “Poor Boy”; I sincerely hope that ey is able to get into a studio and cut a full album with the ideas that were first shown on this self-titled EP. Pick it up.

Top Track: Poor Boy

Rating: 6.3/10

[JMcQ]

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