Tapestry Mastery

The Apes return with Tapestry Mastery, a concept EP that packs a lot of dense organs and guitars, tongue-in-cheek humor, and prog-punk fusion into its six songs. "Maxmilla Intro" finds the band commissioning the blind weaver Maxmilla to weave a tapestry of the convoluted story told by the rest of the EP; there are few things more prog than mixing arts and crafts with rock, but the intricate, rapid-fire organs and lumbering rhythms of "Warp and Wolf," "Mr. Changeling," and the title track come close. Even though Tapestry Mastery is fairly heavy, it still has plenty of room for wit; "3 Mages"' insistent beat has an almost sea shanty-like cadence to it, and the EP's more atmospheric songs, like "Mind of Maxmilla," make amusingly trippy use of heavily processed vocals. Tapestry Mastery doesn't quite match up to the Apes' full-length work, but it does provide a fun, brief dose of their amalgam of psych, prog, and punk.