Council on Fidelity
Fight! Fight! Fight!

The keyboard-drenched reveries of those early Eels albums are revisited on Council on Fidelity's debut EP. The trio takes a low-key/lo-fi approach to these indie-pop confections, with Mark Cange's unassuming voice and barrage of vintage keys cloaking these songs with a drowsy, dreamy haze. Reach and Frequency's five songs don't shift much in tone or tempo, and too often Cange's vocals get lost in the mix (which suggests that the band's name is a touch ironic). With a touch more psychedelia, the band would be a perfect Elephant 6 clone; without the synthesizer washes, these tunes would fade into the background. So far, Council on Fidelity has found a workable middle ground between slackerdom and over-orchestrated pop.

Fight! Fight! Fight! sounds young and skews younger: The quintet's MySpace.com page boasts nearly as many fan groups and street teams as there are tracks on this four-song EP. Erica Ross leads the group with clear, measured vocals which never veer into histrionics, and the boys in the band back her up with rudimentary but effective pop-punk licks. This debut EP gives a good impression of the band's MO — the lyrics are assured without being bratty, and the music is catchy if ultimately innocuous. If nothing else, "I Have Five Fingers and One Hand that Says You Shouldn't Mess with My Friends" suggests that the band has taken a few courses at The Pete Wentz Institute of Overwrought Song Titles.
— Christian Schaeffer

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