EELS is relentless, hooky, and thematically looser than the band’s full-length debut, 2023’s When Horses Would Run, which reveled within the mythos of the American West. That is music of nice particulars and big sentiments, during which a three-minute ditty known as “Blanket of My Bone” seems like being emotionally leveled by your first actual crush. Being Useless strike a fragile steadiness of principally indelicate reference factors: egg punk, cowboy kitsch, surf rock. Each band members sing, and both can take the low or excessive components on these scrappy however exact preparations—their voices name and reply, assert individuality, and are available collectively in unison. Their interaction is self-consciously, nostalgically gendered: “I’m not Prince Charming in Rapunzel’s world,” Shmoofy declares on unusually shifting spotlight “Dragons II,” and later quips: “There’s no perch to your hair/And if there was, I’d simply be pulling.” The album’s friction evokes a bevy of rock acts who harnessed male-female vocal rigidity: early ’90s indie underdogs Unrest, who counterbalanced scuzzy distortion and honeyed harmonies; or L.A. punk legends X, with their skin-tight rhythm part and the barreling back-and-forth of John Doe and Exene Cervenka; or the nanosecond when Pixies turned a heartland pop act on “Right here Comes Your Man.” Being Useless blow up their influences’ singing dynamics to fill 40 minutes, treating dueling vocals as a lead instrument in its personal proper.
The band could have toned down the western pastiche since When Horses Would Run, however the regional fascination stays. “Nation boys and nation ladies/Dancing below the Lonestar stars,” they croon on “Huge Bovine,” and once more on “Ballerina,” a potent, nearly jingoistic picture sophisticated by the paradox of oxymoron. Being Useless’s perspective smacks of Richard Prince’s iconic appropriated photographs of the Marlboro Man in the best way the band reframes the uncooked materials of Americana barely but powerfully, turning moments of would-be grace into satire, whereas imbuing tiny particulars with the burden of a giant desert sky—or a lovesick teenager. EELS explores an ironic, campy sense of innocence, presenting younger, not sure characters on the cusp of realizing the difficulties of maturity. The narrator of “Issues” channels the wide-eyed, emotionally unschooled Speaking Heads from their early CBGB years: “How can I repair the issue when it’s with myself?” All through, Being Useless pack in tales of fruitless 9-to-5s, post-party unhappiness, and navigating emotions throughout a hookup, relating such ostensibly sensible tales with a wink that provides a welcome edge to their fervent performances. They’ve irresistible appeal and a Pavement-level knack for talking out of each side of the mouth.
