Recorded at Brown Bag Recording, Greenfield, Mass. Produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by Frank Padellaro. Assistant engineer: Rob Cook

    London Crawling is a six-song release from Ari Vais’ new NYC-based band The Pelicans. Vais is a superhero from the Western Mass. scene of the late nineties from the band Humbert, which also included the talents of Henning Ohlenbusch, whose School for the Dead are labelmates with Vais’ new outfit. The songs on London Crawling are patiently recorded and thoughtfully fun, either written in or inspired by London, where Vais lived for 18 months.

     The textures are great for headphones and Vais’ low-register voice is sometimes so close that you might feel uncomfortable. Think Ric Ocasek, when you hear his cheeks separate as he opens his mouth. "You kept it goin’" That’s where the Cars comparison ends though. The Pelicans are doing something original that seems like they’re trying to usher in a new era of new romantics. Lines like "I’m dying to crash but I stay awake for you" are delivered in a crooning fashion, resting atop lush arrangements with song structures that are pretty compelling. "Dead" breaks down into a waltzy bit and shifts effortlessly back into a regular time signature.

     The only time when Vais breaks out of his slightly Jarvis Cocker slightly Julian Casablancas smoothness is when he gets excited with the line "I’m due for a raise and promotion," in the song "Like a Flood," which seems symptomatic of one of this EP’s two shortcomings.

     At times London Crawling feels like it’s serving as a résumé to get Vais and his Pelicans a big budget record contract. Not that this is not an admirable enough thing, but for someone as prolific as Vais, why else would there only be six songs? Perhaps the band didn’t come together the way he wanted. This seems the most logical guess, and the band as a band is the other shortcoming.

     These songs demonstrate the work of a good songwriter who sounds like he just hired a group of guys to back him that were only given a little while to learn the songs. It seems misleading for Vais to hide under the plural moniker of Pelicans. The Pelicans are okay as a band, but it would make more sense to have it be credited to Ari Vais and the Pelicans or something, because make no mistake about it, London Crawling is his CD.

     Joe Rosenthal rides out the root note on bass like Michael Anthony, but it sounds fine if we accept what this music really is, which is clever songwriter music. Drummer Art Tavee keeps in good time with Rosenthal and doesn’t stretch much, but again, that’s fine. Blain Kennedy has some good guitar interplay with Vais, a la the vocal-mimicking lead on "Penny’s On the Dole."

     The unsung hero of this record is Ken Maiuri, a multi-instrumentalist who is a songwriter’s dream, playing bells, keyboards and background vocals. Strangely enough Maiuri is only billed as a "special guest," yet his subtle frosting is on every song on this EP. After listening to this I got out an old album by a Swiss band called Sportsguitar. They did a similar thing as the Pelicans, but they don’t make records anymore. Let’s hope the Pelicans keep working together and improve as a unit, because once that happens the Vais’ songs will be that much better.

(Rub Wrongways Records)

Contact: pelicans_info@yahoo.com