Caw! Caw!: Wait Outside

Over the course of seven songs on Wait Outside Caw! Caw! rambles through power-pop (“Organisms”) and folk-rock (“A Name”), but their default style seems to be a sort of melodic, spacey rock. Opener “Escape the Red Giant” sets the tone pretty effectively, with one guitar playing high melodies while the other soaks the song in reverbed-out atmospherics. For most of the song, Burrows rocks out on the drums underneath the guitars. It sounds a lot like what Explosions in the Sky might try if they were interested in doing more traditional rock songs with a lead singer.

These familiar guitar touches show up here and there throughout the EP, on the hard-rocking “Work” and the darkly catchy “Rotten Ghost”. Closer “Sheets” is probably the most obvious example of this influence, clocking in at nearly six minutes and not following typical pop song structure. Fortunately for Caw! Caw!, they’re good at what they do, and even though they sound a bit derivative at this point, their songwriting is solid and the songs themselves are entertaining.