Just before The Fest, The Flatliners dropped a short new EP entitled Nerves and what a welcome treat it is!

Side A “Hang My Head” opens like a relative to “Count Your Bruises” while embracing the bigger melodic punk The Flatliners continually pursue. But the band expanding its sound doesn’t guarantee them any sort of stability. “Cause all my friends are nervous wrecks, preoccupied with looming death certificates,” Chris Cresswell sings in his reliably raspy voice. The song would easily fit on 2013’s cleaner yet no less impressive Dead Language.

While “Hang My Head” is fairly straightforward, “Mud” is a much more nuanced performance across the board, reiterating The Flatliners have something special. Cresswell, always sounding older and wiser than his years, pleads, “There you go turning something in me, come on, set me free.” The song is reminiscent of “Tail Feathers” with its vocally raw performance and guitars, giving it that extra heart wrenching beauty.

This is surely a taste of what’s to come and will tie fans over until the new full length, hopefully coming sooner than later.