Boyfriends' three-song 7" should do fans of squiggly emo revival well. The quartet pair an absolutely shattered, gravelly shout with distinct, driving guitar work, like comrades Big Kids, or early CSTVT.

However, there's almost an intentionally sluggish way about how their guitars wind their way through the nine-minute EP. The tone feels a little slower and sludgier than the usual suspects playing this style, but it gives the band a uniquely thick and slightly muddled sheen all the same-in the vein of Hot Water Music's No Division, maybe. One minor exception is the push and pull on closer "I Heard Punching", which shows the band propelling themselves with a solid forward motion and a reverb-caked, climactic moment.

Boyfriends' (sometimes) poetic, graceful lyrics belie the goofy song titles, too. They like to use consciousness as a metaphor for discovery or personal growth. In "Too Wild for Wild", they pinpoint a moment of discovering contrast: "Just like the day that you found that baby bird / asleep on the frozen moss, / usually so soft and forgiving / ...you found beauty in death." And then "I Heard Punching": "All these feathered bones / awake and in my home. / Trajectories unknown, / stable spaces overgrown. / Who are we to break tradition?"

This is short and beautifully bitter stuff, but with boatloads of potential. We'll tackle their split with Boys & Sex (released a month later) shortly.

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Boyfriends 7" EP