On and Off Superfast are a band hailing out of Los Angeles, California. They were kind enough to send over their latest EP entitled Climate Change. The album is self released and is available from onandoffsuperfast.com or their myspace page. Come along with me as I walk you through the fast-paced assault of this six track, 13 minute VG inspired music with some punk rock attitude.
The EP kicks off with the song Appropriate Methods. The song starts off with a bit of talking, but quickly brings in a drum intro very shortly followed by the rest of the instruments, with vocals kicking in at the 20 second mark. The song maintains it's catchy tune throughout the remainder of it's one and a half minute length. Climate Change immediately kicks into the second track, Alabaster face, which is a slightly darker tune, with some ominent backing vocals, and a more lo-fi quality to it. The song really builds up at the end, effectively cutting itself off at the end. Then Shadowman kicks in, a song with eerie singing that works very well with the keyboard work on this track. Shadowman leads into the more upbeat Alpha State, which shifts the album from gritty lo-fi to a dancier tune with some clean vocal work. The song is catchy, and shows off the range this band is capable of. The fifth track is entitled Words are the War and is the shortest track on the album at a length of 1:16. The song brings back a grittier voice along with some mesmerizing keyboard work.
All these songs lead into the final track, which is nearly as long as all the previous tracks combined. The track is the anthemic song, titled Believe. It is a much slower song than all the other songs on the album. It is a great end to the EP, with it's simple riffs, which give way to it's strong drums and vocals halfway through. The assorted white noise interspersed throughout the song also give the song a more unpredictable nature which adds to it's depth. The song ends with a washed out white noise ending that makes the album end on quite a different note than the one it started off with.
For an album that clocks in at under 14 minutes it definitely finds itself covering quite a bit of aural territory. It sounds like dirty punk music, which is, of course, heavily influnced by video games. It invokes the spirit of a band like At the Drive-in with it's varying vocal styles, as well as simple but complex riff arrangements and strong drum presence. Even at the quite short album length, the EP is very much one worth hearing.
To find out more about On and Off Superfast, as well as hear some songs from Climate Change check out myspace.com/onandoffsuperfast.