Firing Squad are a super-low key Long Island/Brooklyn outfit quietly specializing in surprisingly well-composed emo-indie-punk. 6 Song EP is a spray-painted demo that mixes shout-along, Latterman-style melodic punk camaraderie with a more lush and restrained representation of the guitar noodle revival, which has received pretty wealthy input in recent years from the likes of Street Smart Cyclist, Snowing, Algernon Cadwallader, Hightide Hotel and others.

My favorite moment might be when "Sewn Shut" opens with that repeated hook ("Yeah, / why don't you tell me about it?") chanted in excellent harmonic form as a circling guitar line revolves around it. It's a similar tactic of repetition used in "Guns," which quickly gets over it and into a very able shout-speak form of vocal style. There's this really incredible sense of damaged urgency that runs through much of "Sewn Shut," though, and you can just hear the potential bleeding from it. I think a lot of this stuff might be finger-tapped too, as the guitar work occasionally brings to mind those atmospheric Minus the Bear moments. And if those guitars aren't doing it for you, the slightly grizzly shouts for closer "Critters" should.

I hope these dudes get a little more active, because they've got one of the better Brooklyn "punk" demos I've heard in recent years. While the songs aren't quite hitting me over the heart and head every second, musically everything comes together on this in a pretty original and refreshing way and it's hard not to really enjoy.

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6 Song EP

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