Diet Cig - Over Easy EP

Diet Cig

"Over Easy EP"

8/10

18 February 2015, 09:30 | Written by Jon Putnam

(Albums)

(Diet Cig)

As fortune would have it, I commenced writing this review on Valentine’s Day. Perhaps more than any other day of the year, Valentine’s Day is perceived at a slew of angles, be it the nauseating overtly romantic couple, the bitter bile-spewing ex, or the morose perpetual single and all points in between. And, like I said, as fortune would have it, a couple of college kids from in the sticks of New Paltz, NY an hour and half north of NYC have crafted a debut EP seamlessly fit for all forms of lovers and non-lovers alike this Valentine’s Day season (of course, it’s not coming out for another week or so).

That breathy, naïve cooing over the clatter of trebly, lo-fi strumming and kit-bashing style is enjoying a recent purple patch of success lately, a development that Yours Truly is utterly on board with. However, Diet Cig lead lady Alex Luciano puts her own lyrical spin on the genre of sorts. Avoiding the bookish and precious tendencies that have typically been accompanying the style, Luciano prefers to highlight the joys of walking around in your underwear, make casual demands of “blow your nose” and “take a shit”, and offer the ol’ backward V sign to a certain Ivy League institution’s winter wear.

With Luciano strumming away alongside drummer Noah Bowman, the two show barely a novice instrumental musicality and their lo-fi ambience is surely out of necessity more than an aesthetic statement. Yet, none of this matters really; nay, it actually accentuates the pair’s roguish charm. Breezing by in ten minutes, with three of its five tracks wrapping up under the two minute mark, none of Over Easy’s songs seem too brief or unfinished and it affords us listeners the ease of playing it thrice over in just a half hour (which you will want to do).

This old guy seasoned life veteran here absolutely swoons when Luciano belts out, “watch The Simpsons on my floor / pretend it’s 1994!” on “Breathless” cause, you know, I was there and it was good times; credit her sense of humour here as I’d give a 50/50 shot that Luciano was even born. In a fair and just world, Diet Cig would become huge and Luciano would be credited with originating such f-bomb-driven rallying cries as “fuck all your romance / I just wanna dance!” for the giddy no-frill lover types and “fuck your Ivy League sweater!” for the jilted former flame camp.

Effervescently exuberant and, I dare say, the most charming ten minutes you’ll experience through your speakers this year, Over Easy is a celebration of young, dumb, and silly love that’s guaranteed to stick with you long after you’ve become old and wise, ensuring you never become too much so of either one.