Very little is known to me about this cassette because as it is part of the Illegal Tapas Distro the site for it doesn't want you to know too much about it. But I kind of like that, as I use the songs on Bandcamp as a guide sometimes to piece together a cassette. I'm not able to do that now and it's kind of nice in some ways. I mean, I know why people put digital music up on Bandcamp, but I wouldn't mind living in a world where albums must be heard on cassette or not at all (or CD or record if that's your thing) I actually had this idea once where I wanted to take music back to before The Beatles and only have live performances- no recorded material- but with cell phones it'd be too difficult to pull off, right?
"Love Songs" has two sides: they are marked with dashes and the side with only one dash (which I assume would be Side A or Side I) was not the side which this was rewound to, but I did the right thing and rewound it anyway so I could listen to this the proper way. The side which I listened to first also says "EW" on it, so I assume this artist is named EW and I'm ok with that. Right away, I hear the loud, distorted bass coming through my speakers and I'm immediately in love. It has that feel of something from the grunge era at its base so of course I'm going to be into it.
In some ways, this reminds me of something like L7 or even the distortion of older (and really I mean older, like first album) songs by Local H. It's that rock which is so solid and fast paced it can begin to resemble punk as well. For a more modern sense, it has a bit of The White Stripes in the sound to it as well. It's funny for me to say that because I feel like The White Stripes came out after the whole grunge scene but I still feel like their songs had ties to it somehow. Though, sometimes the vocals can also sound like that 1950's era of rock n roll, which for a more recent comparison could be Shannon & the Clams.
The lyrics are in a way that you can sing along with them after a few listens. They can range from "I had a dream my uncle was in love with me" to "I'm not me when I'm hungry". Though the song about wanting to just go home and draw cartoons really got me because I love cartoons. With some hints of the Misfits, this takes an unexpected turn as the lyrics turn into an homage to her daddy being sweet like a Georgia peach. After some vibrant guitar notes, it seems as if the song is coming back around for one more slower part before kicking in a final time and Side I comes to an end. Yes, the end of that song really did just get cut off. I'd like to see your fancy digital music do that.
Oddly, what I will refer to as "Side II" has the words "Folie A Deux" on it and I know that to be an artist on Crass Lips Records so I went into the flip side thinking this would be a split. Not only is it a split in that sense, I immediately recognized the first song on the Folie à Deux side as being from their "Illness Is Business" cassette. It is the song called "Teenage TV Junky Sluts", which comes in at the number five spot on that cassette. After that song, "Never Alone" comes on next, which is actually the next song on "Illness Is Business" as well. The rest of this side is songs from "Illness Is Business" including "Born Of a Gang Bang", "God Hates You", "Giannah", "The Love That You Want", "Watersports", "(SE) SERENA (SE)" and "Mania" which is in the order of that cassette minus the first four songs.
So on this cassette you get songs from Ew, which say they are "Love Songs" and in some ways they are, even though they seem to have a theme of food (Though, I love food, so...) but the sound of them is right on. You get the majority of the "Illness Is Business" cassette as well, but hopefully you already have that (And who knows, maybe if you buy this cassette they'll put something different on the flip side, a little Street Rat perhaps?) so you really need to be listening to this one for Ew and it is very much worth it.
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