Just More Drugs

More than just the single from the recent My Life in Rooms long-player, Just More Drugs is a satisfying stand-alone release that showcases Barzin's primary strength. Three of the four extra songs on this 20-minute EP are radio sessions recorded in England and Barzin's native Canada, and the stripped-down rearrangements of the title track, "Mistakes," and "Let's Go Driving" put Mike Findlay's guitar and voice squarely in the spotlight where his soft but not weedy vocal style and the offhand introspection of his refreshingly non-emo lyrics can be best appreciated. In comparison, the new studio track "Queen Jane" sounds so much like the full-band slowcore haze of My Life in Rooms that one suspects it's simply an outtake. And in the context of the three minimalist radio sessions, the original album version of "Just More Drugs" sounds unnecessarily over-produced, its heavy effects and processing on Findlay's vocals suddenly ostentatious and slightly off-putting. Back in the day, EPs were both an effective place for experimentation and a low-impact way to display different sides of artists; Just More Drugs mostly fulfills the latter function, but by focusing on the aspect of their music that differentiates Barzin from their slowcore contemporaries, it also points in a potentially fruitful direction for future albums.