Inu - Monster EP Review
Posted by Marshall Slayton on 01.27.2010
Googling "Inu" will only result in searches for Inuyasha, the Japanese manga series. But I can assure you, Inu's new five-track EP is not comprised of manga of any kind. But it does have a track called "Stephen Colbert"!
1. The Bailing
2. Stephen Colbert
3. Disarmed
4. A Quiet Place
5. Captured
Inu is a new supergroup that’s…. well… not so super. No Tom Morello or Dave Grohl here. Just some experienced veterans who have been hiding in our midsts.
The group is comprised of Count, who has produced and remixed for DJ Shadow and Radiohead, a guy named Tim Hingston (who plays with Niles Lannon), and cellist Zoe Keating from Imogen Heap. Sounds like fun? Of course it does. Read on.
They’ve just released a five song EP called the Monster EP. Call it part techno, part new wave, and part pop, and you’ve got an excellent shot and a good round to buy the house.
Perhaps getting hopes too high, Inu puts the best song up front with “The Bailing.” Very vocal oriented, it sounds like a leftover cut from Radiohead’s Kid A, blending together elements of guitar rock, a synthesizer, bubbling R2-D2 noises, and a faint steel triangle. The vocals aren’t half bad; Mikael Eldridge (ahem, Count) sounds like the little brother of Chris Corner from the Sneaker Pimps and possibly Chris Martin from Coldplay on one of his sick days.
“Stephen Colbert” is a respectful nod to the Comedy Central talk show host, perhaps Inu is trying really hard to get on his show. Can’t blame them – if Stephen Colbert can grace the Olympics and find his name on the side of a NASA space station, why not a song title, too?
“My friend, Stephen Colbert, will tell them all!” Count smirks in the chorus of the song. “Upsetting freedom of speech with giant balls!” Stephen Colbert should return the favor and give a Tip of his Hat.
“Disarmed” explorers the mellower side of Inu (but not quite as mellow as “Disarm” from the Smashing Pumpkins). If “The Bailing” was Radiohead’s Kid A, then “Disarmed” is way, way, The Bends. Not a bad number, but the successor, “A Crowded Place” owns it. It's a messy number, with sloppy guitar atop Count’s quiet vocals. It’s a very ambitious song before climaxing with straight-up noise. Yet, though thicker than pea soup, there’s beauty to be found in all the ugliness.
The only track I couldn’t sink my teeth into was the final one, “Captured.” It starts off melancholy before sinking into excellent distorted guitar ambience. The idea is great, but when the fun finally arrives, it’s too little, too late. The song never quite finds a chorus through it all, and it ends the EP on a rather disappointing note.
Still, Inu proves to be a promising new act, and one ponders what a full album from them would be like. And hey-- four out of five ain’t bad.
(Note: no YouTube video sample available, but if you go to inumusic.com, you can hear the entire EP for free!)
The 411: Inu’s new EP should please fans of Radiohead, DJ Shadow, and Imogen Heap. Most of the music is safe, but it’s never outright awful. This EP is like a collection of coming attractions before the start of a movie – mostly the promise of something greater. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily – but it does leave us eager for the feature presentation.
