Everyone Vs Everyone

Former Mega City Four leader Wiz finally re-emerges with a debut EP by his new band. Everyone Vs. Everyone is a smashing return, a rousing record full of power chords meeting momentous melodies. If one could think of MC4 as a hard power pop cross between the Replacements, the Descendents, and Bob Mould, then Serpico is the same, only with the throttle roaring hotter and thicker. Twisted-string and double-guitar smashing, pumping drums with a fat, full sound and a driving bass come tight and mean and joyous, the perfect piston-charged electricity to put the bite in Wiz's infectious, thought-provoking words and those soaring tunes. As usual, it's impossible to review a record of Wiz's without quoting his poetic emotional gift. A postmortem for a long shot romance that unsurprisingly didn't pan out, or so it seems, the EP is cutting in its candid analysis. The bitter recriminations of the opener, "Little Star," with its repeated coda, "Blinded by the light of your little star," feeds into the chorus of "Price of Everything": "And now he calculated the loss/Too bad he never saw it coming/Too bad the value's always dropping." But lest you think Wiz has lost his former romantic optimism, the searing "Next Sound You Hear" heralds the promise of renewal, culminating in the frenzied, insistent, repeated "Call me!!!!" ending. It's the way he sets this heart's minefield to outstanding songs that's always distinguished this guy. Everyone Vs. Everyone is every bit as good as any old Mega City Four record, with the dive-bomb hooks in the choruses of "Price of Everything" and "Don't Lean on Me" particularly vicious. And the wounded pride and self-accusations just drip from his voice. All returns should be this powder-keg potent, and this one comes with the fuse lit!