Early Day Miners - Southern Myth 7"
(Zeal)
Early Day Miners' first release and debut album, Placer Found, was one of the two or three best albums released last year, a beautiful soundscape album inspired by the imagery of the Southwest. Their second release is this import-only 7" featuring two short, new songs.
"Southern Myth" is the most pop song Early Day Miners has done to this point in their career, and the more pop aspects minimizes the band's Southwestern flavor. The song is built around the vocals, reinforced by the band's first use of female backing vocals. Organ-sounding keyboard sounds create a steady ambiance throughout the track, letting the guitar come in at the end of the measure, its high-pitched tone piercing through.
Two-thirds of Early Day Miners were also in the old post-rock band Ativin, and "Room and Pillar" could very well be a holdover from that earlier band. That is, if it wasn't for the twang of the lapsteel that makes this song more similar to the band's debut album. The extra post-rock-ness is not a detriment, though, as it is a great, pretty little instrumental song. The lead guitar plays at a fast tempo, while the second, higher-pitched guitar provides accents to the lead guitar part, playing at a slower tempo, building into a gentle crescendo at the end of the song.
What made the Early Day Miners' album great was how evocative it was of the landscape of the Southwest that inspired it. It's a bit harder to recreate that in a 6 minute single; the band doesn't really even seem to be trying to recreate it. Instead, you just get two short, sweet songs, neither one really twangy or Southwesterny at all.
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