To EP or not EP
New short takes from Zalerno, Polaroids, John Gallagher's Company Town, and Tiny Cities, plus our Song of the Week.
ZALERNO - “Mythic Romance” EP (Mint 400)
If you caught Zalerno’s sprightly “Curious” single last August, you’ll remember a burst of teenage charm and jangly indie confidence from frontman/multi-instrumentalist Griffin Salerno and drummer Joaquin Narucki. Now the Hudson County duo deliver Mythic Romance, their debut EP, expanding that promise into something both bolder and more personal.
Salerno’s still navigating high school hallways, and Narucki’s nineteen, so it feels right that these songs wrestle with the emotional whiplash of young love — confusion, anger, longing, and all the messy bits in between. “It’s Fair” leads with an almost pop-punk strut: a breathless verse that tumbles through self-doubt and resentment before exploding into an anthemic chorus of “hey’s!” straight out of the Meat Locker singalong playbook.
By contrast, “All The Time” thrashes forward like a tantrum in four-four time, Narucki’s snare snapping behind Salerno’s guitar hooks. The final track, “With Me,” gives us th comedown after the heartbreak, when the anger fades and the ache sets in, Salerno pleading “let me out, let me out.”
Zalerno still play like they’ve got something to prove — and they kind of do. But for a pair of kids still a few years shy of a bar gig, they sound startlingly self-assured. Salerno’s got an instinct for riffs and melody beyond his age, and Narucki drives it all with unflagging precision. Mythic Romance might be about adolescent chaos, but it lands with the poise of a band already finding its voice.
POLAROIDS - “i gotta know” EP (Disposable Noise)
If Polaroids had shown up thirty years ago, you can bet they’d have been sandwiched between Dinosaur Jr. and Soul Asylum on a bill at Maxwell’s, sweating it out in front of a wall of amps. Fast forward to the early 2000’s, and they’d be splitting gigs with Bionic Rhoda and Aviso’Hara at the Court Tavern or Melody Bar, chasing that same scrappy dream. Today, these DIY twentysomethings carry the torch for Hudson County’s growing all-ages community, proving there’s still magic in the simple idea of two electric guitars, a rhythm section (Jasmine De Leon on drums and Jeremy Mendoza on bass) that actually listens to each other, and a singer in Edgar Echeverria who’s more about heart than pitch correction.
The Polaroids, especially lead guitarist Eliel Esquivel, sound like they grew up on distortion pedals and disappointment, and they make it sound beautiful. The first three tracks—“i was thinking of jurassic shark,” “burning matches,” and “scab”—pound and shimmer in equal measure, driven by urgency but leaving room for air and heartache. It’s the moments when the band chooses not to play that add heart pounding excitement to these tracks. “CTRL” leans furthest into the shoegaze that defined their early recordings, with a celestial guitar line that dissolves into a storm of noise, rhythm, and emotion.
It’s the kind of release that makes you remember why we fell in love with indie rock in the first place—loud, unpolished, and completely alive.
TINY CITIES - “Beginning of the End” EP (Tiny Cities Music)
Melissa Anthony and Dennis King (who you may know solo as Sonofdov) are Tiny Cities, debuting with this three song EP (with a bonus track if you purchase the vinyl.) The duo blend gentle folk melodies with a country twang on the warm and inviting “Quiet Take Two” which incorporates a melodic bassline and a choir of jumbled voices for added depth and interest. Anthony’s shimmering, soaring vocal highlights “Body Cast.” “Greens and Blues” leans more heavily into a country sound, with washes of ethereal vocals and the plink of piano adding distinctive notes. The bonus track, a cover of Skeeter Davis’ 1962 hit “The End of the World,” lets Anthony’s sweet and supple vocal shine, with a sparse accompaniment that erupts into a dramatic orchestral crescendo with martial drums that fades to a final sad verse. It’s all lovely, just lovely, a record to drink in and savor.
COMPANY TOWN - “Wrong Generation” EP (Self-released)
You might remember John Gallagher from his solo project, Commons2, with its cinematic indie textures and orchestral DIYmanship. With Company Town, he’s off on a new adventure, this time armed with a sampler and a restless imagination.
Gallagher calls this new thing “sampedelia,” which fits as well as anything. Picture a few guitars and keys layered over a dreamy montage of beats, voices, and old soundbites scavenged from the ether. There’s jazz in the bones, but it’s the kind of jazz you hear half-awake on a Sunday morning, more mood than melody.
Across four tracks, he builds something hypnotic and oddly peaceful. Three of them drift like ambient postcards; the closer, “Some Daze,” drags things back to earth with Gallagher’s own voice riding a sputtering loop that builds until it all collapses, gentle as static fading from your speakers.
If you’ve followed Commons2, you’ll hear the same curiosity and control, but Company Town feels more daring. Not a reinvention, exactly — more like a side street that turns out to be beautiful in its own right.
ST. DIVINE - “Spit” (Self-released)
Last summer, they told us to “Swallow.” Now Judy Ann Nock and Will Croxton want us to “Spit” on the latest cave stomp single from this Hoboken-adjacent garage-rock combo. Rock ‘n’ roll lifers Nock and Croxton duetting vocals steer this runaway car off a cliff, ably abetted by guitarist Phil Yanos, bassist Jesse Barnes, and drummer Mike Ratti. From a stinging opening riff to its manic chorus to an emphatic staccato finale, “Spit” revels in gritty hi-octane rock ‘n’ roll guaranteed to raise your spirits (and dander.) There’s a message here too, if you can see past the band’s hyper-animated exuberance: We’re all being fed loads of crap by the government and the media every single day. When it all gets to much, “Spit! spit! spit! spit!”
Wow, the part about emotional whiplash truely stood out; you captured that adolescent intensity so insightfully, it's a complex system to model.