Ducktails: Wish Hotel EP

Ducktails
Wish Hotel EP
Domino
2013-10-23

It’s easy to consider Ducktails — the solo project of Real Estate guitarist Matt Mondanile — nothing more than a diversion between Real Estate albums, but Mondanile proved many listeners wrong with his cohesive, brilliant album The Flower Lane this year. His new EP Wish Hotel continues in the vein of that album, albeit in a looser, jammier way. Structurally, the songs are closer to Monandile’s earlier Ducktails work — the arrangements are built more around Mondanile’s phased guitar rather than any vocal melody. Not a whole lot about Wish Hotel really points into a new direction or finds Mondanile straying too far from his comfort zone. Then again, after the triumphant year he’s had, he could be forgiven for taking a bit of victory lap.

RATING 5 / 10