Did you ever watch the show “Pretender”? I hardly watched, but I
\nknow the show was based around a character who could assume any
\nline of work and do it successfully. (There’s a deeper sub-plot I’m
\nignoring, I’m aware of this.)<\/p>\n
The thoughts of this show crossed my mind while listening to
\nFor<\/i>, the fourth release from Philadelphia-based Maggi,
\nPierce And E.J. The band changes its musical style more often than
\nsome people I remember from college changed their underwear. But
\nwhat’s interesting about this eclectic trio (besides how many bands
\nthey remind me of) is that they handle almost every single style
\nthey come across well.<\/p>\n
Maggi, who handles all the lead vocals, sounds most often like a
\ncross between Lisa Loeb and Fleming McWilliams (from Fleming &
\nJohn), with maybe an occasional touch of Tori Amos thrown in at
\ntimes. Musically, the group is all over the place – something which
\nnormally would be annoying and distracting. However, the key is
\nthat Maggi, Pierce And E.J. make the style changes sound like it’s
\nall part of the master plan – and it is surprisingly smooth.<\/p>\n
How else can one explain the way the group can go from sounding
\nlike Sergio Mendes & The Brazil ’66 (remember
\nthem<\/i>?) on “Ferdinand” to a light jazz-alternative mix on
\n“Burning The Sun” to an almost Phish-like opening on “Space”? In
\nthe hands of many other bands, these kinds of shifts would leave
\nlisteners pulling out their hair. But somehow, Maggi, Pierce And
\nE.J. not only make these changes seamless, but they do a damn good
\njob in almost any genre they’re thrown.<\/p>\n
The only exception – and the only track on
\nFor<\/i> which doesn’t work – is “This Year’s Obsession”. It has
\nnothing to do with being led in by a humorous interlude in “What
\nThe Heck”; instead,.it just doesn’t seem right for this band to be
\ntackling a hoarse kind of pseudo-punk-alternative on “This Year’s
\nObsession”. Still, that’s one slip out of 15 listed tracks.<\/p>\n
I say “listed,” because Maggi, Pierce And E.J. bury some
\nsnippets in the disc, which surface after about a four-minute
\nsilent track 16. (Note to any band reading: I, like millions of
\nother listeners, have better things to do with my time than to sit
\nthrough silence while little “ego projects” are hidden. You want me
\nto listen to these, you’d better be ready to pay me for my time. I
\nthink a dollar for each minute of silence is fair… and two
\ndollars for each minute worth of “ego project” that is a waste of
\ntime. If this is the standard, this group owes me $9.)<\/p>\n
I have a little difficulty following the logic that
\nFor<\/i> was inspired by the life and music of Jeff Buckley,
\nthough the melancholy atmosphere that makes up some of these tracks
\n(many of which were written before Buckley’s death) sometimes does
\nprovide a type of tie-in. But you don’t even need to know the logic
\nbehind this disc to enjoy it. And while Maggie, Pierce And E.J.
\nmight be reveling in their anonymity created without the use of
\nlast names, if
\nFor<\/i> is any indication, they won’t be unknowns for much
\nlonger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7642],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-39527","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-maggi-pierce-e-j","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39527"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39527"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}