Tiny Animals Sweet Sweetness Album Review By Ben Wood

Sweet Sweetness by Tiny Animals begins as a compelling amalgam of Smashing Pumpkins angst and Oasis neo-rock, but quickly becomes a typical freshman effort. Given the nearly 20 second gap of dead air between its fourth and fifth tracks, the band knows it -- and hopes we'll make a distinction, as they do, between its A- and B-sides. The EP is worth a listen, the LP, less so.

The first four tracks of Sweetness range from powerful, Stone Temple Pilots-esque distorted metal, to Parachutes-era Coldplay pop. With slick guitar stylings by Chris Howerton, the agile and elusive bass of Anton Kreisl, and tight drums from Rita Maye Howerton, the frequent clunker of a lyric also recalls the Coldplay comparison. Perhaps less savvy a vocalist than Chris Martin, Chris Howerton of Tiny Animals nonetheless achieves a similar lyricism. It ends up being, in the case of the easily deepest ballad, Avalanche, an unfortunate deal breaker.

Over a soulfully plucked guitar riff, simple cymbals and a roving, introspective bass line, the verse lyrics land like sad sobs in an otherwise truly beautiful tune. Strings rise in the background of the chorus and Rita Maye's sweet backup provides a chilling harmonic contrast, but the listener is left processing the words, and losing the music.

With a seemingly sing-song obligation to undulate, rising and falling with every other measure, the male Howerton does too much. His lyrics think too much, and interrupt the natural flow of their own melody, leaving some phrases hanging while stringing others together in long, run-on lines. "I to-ok my/ Baby up the moun-tain/ On her way down carv-ing/ The white and great wide o-pen/ The slope then/ Opened up and froze shut/ The snow collapsed and cov-ered/ Her and she was smoth-ered/ We tried/ To dig her out and all these/ Grizzlies and coyotes/ Helped me fight the cold freeze."

He lands it in time for the sweet, mournful chorus, but it's too late: "... the Avalanche was too strong/ Too strong/ The avalanche was too strong/ Too Strong/ And I don't even know how I got home..." Later he sings of writing "a million-dollar/ song about the ski trip/ [that] no one's gonna hear," and sadly for us, he's right. Because like The Greatest Song in the World, Avalanche can only play tribute to an event more meaningful than this memoir is able to evoke.

By the time we get into the B-sides, the occasional gold is rarer come by. Attractive hooks and catchy riffs seem to indicate a fertile source of potential to come, but for now the band is too hung up in the trappings of album-making. Questionable additions such as the annoying Useless and dispensable Youth Today, unwisely left together to end the record, force one to wonder if the band is serious. They and so many other selections do the album detriment, and it ends up being a weak LP rather than a completely decent EP with a few useable singles.

As is, there's just too much rope to hang themselves with. Hearing the B-sides begin with the absolutely insipid Freedom of Choice, the listener ends up feeling like the dog in its unfortunate chorus: "In Ancient Ro-ome/ There was a po-em/ About a do-og/ Who found two bo-ones/ He licked the one/ He licked the other/ He went in circles/ And he-e dropped dead."

The potential is in there, though. The band's talent is evident in strange but interesting offerings like “Is This the Last Time?”, which starts off like a Bends-era Radiohead single and ends up a musical-theater-like dueling duet between the Howertons (brother and sister). It's bizarre, if well-crafted, but it left this listener wondering first if they're done experimenting, and then second if she doesn't win: maybe giving her a spin as frontwoman on the next EP might be an experiment worth trying.