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The Orphan, The Poet - "In Brevity"
Release Date: June 29, 2009

Alternative Rock/Indie three piece The Orphan the Poet released the first EP back in June, and I remember listening to one or two tracks before forgetting about it.  I figured I'd give it another listen.  It took more than one listen for me to find my thoughts, though: While there are a few interesting lines and some nice parts on this album, I don't think I'll be putting In Brevity on repeat anymore.

The first two tracks, "Archetype" and "Texas or Bust", aren't bad songs, but they're a bit disappointing. There's nothing that really stands out in either track; they're just generic Alternative/Punk Rock. Both songs really remind me of Amber Pacific. The song structure in "Archetype" is a bit notable, though. It starts out like an average song for the genre, but as it gets closer to the end, the song changes sound completely into some sort of 20 second heavy metal breakdown. It then returns to normalcy for a few more seconds, and then there's about 20 seconds of acoustic music. It's interesting and different, but ultimately not enough to save the song.

The third track, "Kingdom", isn't impressive musically, but the lyrics are phenomenal: "Tyrant, breathe me in. Know my movement. Trace a line across, just keep your faith when maps can be so deceiving." I love the word choice, because while this may sound like a story of man against man, the rest of the lyrics slowly reveal that this "tyrant" is a woman that the speaker is in love with. It's basically a song about rejection, and the lyrics are extremely well done. In its whole, though, "Kingdom" is a pretty poor track. The vocals seem out of place at some times, the guitar work is plain and uninteresting, and the verses are drug out much longer than need be - it's a very, very slow song.

The stand-out track on the album is "To Those Called Icarus", and it's pretty phenomenal. Echoing vocals and the smooth guitar work help put the focus on the vocals. The singer has a very serious and sincere tone as he tells a story of non-conformity. Men build walls to keep their bad deeds in, but the speaker begs for a ship to sail out with the sirens, inevitably to his death. The guitar work and drumming aren't bad, they're just not special. Admittedly, the instruments could use some pizazz, but the song as a whole is nice and memorable.

The album unfortunately ends as it started, as the track "A Kite's Lament" isn't really amazing. For the first time on the album, there's an acoustic guitar that actually sounds extremely nice. It's present in most of the song, with the exception of the chorus, which goes back to a normal, mediocre electric guitar. This song also contains a mini-bonus track that I found more enjoyable than the song itself. A creepy-sounding piano accompanies what sounds like the vocalist through an old-timely filter. He sings about snakes and I'm sure the entire thing is a metaphor, but I didn't quite understand it. All I know is I absolutely love the final lines: "How could you see my skin only for it's scars? I see us for who we will be, not only who we are." The bonus song is very Envy on the Coast and I liked it.

All these small additions and little gimmicks couldn't really make the album for me, though. Sometimes I hear some Saosin or Envy in the music, but the sound quickly changes to that mediocre Alt. Rock sound again. I wouldn't recommend buying it, even for fans of the genre, but if you're interested you might give them a listen. This is only the band's first release and it's a simple five track EP; I'm not sure how they'll handle a full-length, but they have enough talent to make me interested. Maybe next year.