reviewed by Jack Derricourt

Owen Meany’s Batting Stance is a name that might get thrown around on the playground as an insult, but develops into a wonderful conversational piece at bars as Owen matures into the realm of real world joy and exaltation of difference. The band’s (Daniel Walker) debut EP is appropriately jaded-but-alive sounding.

The style of OMBS is wordy, to say the least. However, on tracks like “Dissonance” and “The Goose But More the Gaggle” you see that being lyric-filled doesn’t mean they’re going for pretence. There’s a litany of information pouring out of the eyes of the song’s speaker, but what those abundant words paint is an insecure mind, a thoughtful person uttering out the stream of shit that spews through his filter of perception. Maybe the highlight of this approach to songwriting comes at the album’s end, on “Winter Wednesdays,” as Walker shouts out a series of rhetorical questions into the cold air.

There are lovely, classic pop drum beats all over the EP. Nothing too complex. “Charlotte’s Gossamer Awaits” is filled with tight beats that propel a chorus pulsing with human feeling — and it’s only one minute and a half, holy shit.

“Pop Odyssey: The First Person Narrative of the Bottle of Cola” is exactly what it sounds like, just so you know.

My personal favourite on the album is “Growth” — a very modest, stumbling pop sequence, with sliding guitar parts that made me smile. It’s a bit like something from the 2000s and the 1980s, but not in that way that everything else these days sounds like those two periods of musical creations.

So, as you’re living through your sure-to-come “Winter Wednesdays,” give this one a try. It’s an EP you should get to know too well. Make sure you check out the first single for the EP.

Owen Meany’s Batting Stance is available Sept. 16th.

Top Track: “Growth”

Rating: Strong Hoot (Good)