Undercover Crops

Personnel: Brother Caleb (vocals, baritone guitar); Brother Ashton (vocals, drums).
Audio Mixer: Toshi Kasai.
Recording information: Pro Boyz Audio, Costa Mesa, CA.
If Marvel ever made What If? for rock bands, Tweak Bird could be the result of an issue hypothesizing a universe where Dean and Gene Ween joined the Melvins instead of Big Business. While this pairing might seem a far-fetched one, brothers Caleb and Ashton Bird have made it very real, mixing sludgy stoner rock with a youthful irreverence on their EP, Undercover Crops. Recorded over a weekend, the 15-minute effort feels less like an EP and more like a short album, offering a consistency from song to song that feels more fully realized than a lot of full-lengths. While it might feel like the EP is unsatisfying short, it's hard to think of anything else to add to it. Sure, you could always drop in more songs or make the existing tracks longer, but the bite-sized experiences captured on Undercover Crops feel perfectly balanced and tuned, with no filler tracks or extended jams mucking up the brief but pure experience offered by the EP. It's tempting to want more of the bands fuzzed-out, with stoner riffs and weird vocals, but it might just be too much of a good thing. ~ Gregory Heaney