Slaughter Beach, Dog is the vehicle that Jake Ewald will be piloting in the wake of all the emo and angst he peddled with indie act Modern Baseball. What this is, in fact, is an excuse to get even more emo. Seriously though, it's based more on stripped-down acoustics, all-too-familiar lyrics ripped straight from Ewald's diaries , but here you can sense he's much more vulnerable and personal than ever. Birdie definitely feels like a grower but all in all, it's worth it.

A few tracks run a bit boring and slightly monotonous but you've got the synth-traced "Shapes I Know" paying homage to acts like Conor Oberst and Max Bemis, "Buttercup" for fans of John K. Samson, and songs like "Phoenix" for when Ewald wants to explore his inner Elliott Smith or Sufjan Stevens. In these 10 tracks, you get a lot closer with him than you do in Modern Baseball's narrative which feels much more wholesale as opposed to Ewald's new musical therapy sessions. He lays it all on the line and hopefully it's the start of bigger things to come. I'll miss MoBo when that time comes but Birdie does well to sate that gap for now.