travis vick - the goat ep

last august i saw a fabulous musician play a show at tokyo garden. this doesn't surprise me, as they are often really good shows there. anyway, i enjoyed the show, especially the music of travis vick. i liked it so much i wrote up a little review that you can read here.

anyway, a little while ago, probably a few months ago, i received and email from travis asking for my address because he wanted to send me a copy of his new ep. and he did, which was super cool of him. i've intended to review it here for quite some time. well here is that review.

the ep is five songs, which is pretty standard ep length. actually, it seems a lot of the ep's i see lately are three or four, so five is nice.

onto the songs:
track one - box - a gentle, simple song about the box where mementos of a past love are kept. the song has a nice alt/country feel, a sound which i quite enjoy.

track two - pagemakers - this song reminds me of something from the 60's, in a good way. a banjo creeps into this song, as well as delicate picking on a guitar.

track three - sheep skin - the start of this song actually reminds me of rademacher's road to nowhere, played on a ukulele. overall, the song doesn't do much for me.

track four - if i don't lose my mind - this song may best show off travis vick's ability on the guitar. the track features intricate sounding picking (i have no idea how intricate it actually is but it sounds nice while being complex). the picking and vocals give the track a nice depth to it. also, this song is longer than the previous three at 4min 41 secs, so it a little more time to develop and grow on you.

track five - bill - this track is 10 minutes long. i know, i just talked about a longer song being nice, so it seems odd to be wary of a ten minute song. but i worry that a ten minute song might just ramble on aimlessly. it kinda did. and that around five minutes in i'm going to be disinterested. which i was.


here's the artwork from the ep
front cover - frankly, this goat kinda creeps me out. i think it's the dual image thing. it seems like satan or something.



inside cover - mr. vick himself. when i saw him play live he really reminded me of my brother in law. this picture doesn't.



back cover - this goat doesn't creep me out. it has a nice beard. and is probably the same goat.



so, i wouldn't race out to get this ep. it has some nice touches, and reminds me of his previous work a bit, but it also takes some odd turns as well. i would like to see travis play live again, because i really dug that and am curious to see how his music has evolved live. it kinda bums me out that i didn't like the ep all that much because i really enjoyed him live, and i liked his other album, player piano.