Review
Street Eaters
Self Titled

There are a few formats I almost go out of my way to avoid, namely cassettes and digital EPs. However, I’ll make an exception for certain bands and Street Eaters are one of those. Street Eaters released their debut full-length Rusty Eyes and Hydrocarbons in 2011 and it still grips me today. This self-titled digi-EP did see a 12” pressing from Germany’s Cut the Cord That…Records, but only in a limited edition. Here in the States I had to hit up their bandcamp to hear their first new material since the full-length.

It opens with a minimal and promising lead vocal from Megan March as a bass line rumbles below, kicking up several gears after using her voice to capture attention. There’s an honest and appealing tone in the delivery that pulls in while the songs build in tempo and direction and co-conspirator John No jumps in on the shared vocals, before a smooth handoff partway through. The dynamic between March and No is the definitive characteristic behind Street Eaters and that does not change with this release. The two play in synch, complementing one another’s instruments perfectly without succumbing to any of that cutesiness that invades many boy-girl duos. 

The group vocals aren’t perfectly in key, but that plays into the charm behind the semi-melodic songs, achieving a strangely effective balance of disparate tones in the process. It’s rooted in punk rock which, my friends, isn’t always about perfection as much as it’s about humanizing limitations. Ultimately, Street Eaters are able to blend a noisy bass-drum jam with melodious choruses and well-placed hooks to make atypical music that pulls heavily from non-traditional structures without leaving the context of a verse-chorus-verse song. It’s like post-punk, but without the deconstructionist tendencies. 

At six songs the EP is just a taste but it continues the same path as its predecessor album, blending personal tones with socio-political content, building their lyrics around metaphors in tracks like “Culture War” and “Shaky Castles.” While there’s not really a standout track, the EP has a cohesive and “album” feel that holds together nicely, with signs of growth in the duo’s songwriting. “Shaky Castles” mixes things up with staccato rhythms that trade off and on with raging verses, playing more on contrast. It closes the record with the group finding new ways to make their two-instrument songs interesting and simultaneously raging, successfully proving that a guitar isn’t necessary in the process.