Mr. Ellis has already accomplished a great deal in his musical “career” (I say it this way because somehow I doubt Nathan Ellis is rolling deep in the dough from his various musical endeavors) that has carved a unique and impressive path amongst his myriad of projects which have included being one of the bassists in the ground breaking hardcore punk band Coalesce, being the guitarist and lead vocalist in math-y indie rockers The Casket Lottery, and also fronting the underrated and underappreciated Jackie Carol. With this single Nate is stepping out of the group setting and laying down his own vision of the music that he wants to write unfettered by the group dynamic but also unshielded by that same setting; this self titled EP is his chance to strike out on his own and make a personal record (though some of his previous work sounded rather personal at times any way).
There have been some rather notable entries by former punk and hardcore veterans stepping into the singer / songwriter spotlight with varying degrees of success, but I have to be honest in saying that generally I cringe whenever I hear that one of these guys strikes out on their own; and it is not without some sense of trepidation that I popped on Nathan Ellis’s solo seven inch single for the first time, but not because I was suspecting something less than quality but more so because his other work has been so strong up until this point.
What is certainly most surprising on this single is the manner in which it sounds nothing like Ellis’s previous work in any of his other musical outlets and also does not fall into the self serving generic singer / songwriter fare as songs like the instrumental “Onion Too” display a playful experimentation that is refreshing and sounds more like part of a movie score than anything while the orchestration of “the Comedians” is also a pleasant surprise and “Balance Beam” seems to combine several different styles into one finely crafted pop song.
After listening to the EP a few times, the three songs here sound like songs that may have been written for another musical project that did not quite fit in with the overall sound of whatever body of work for which they were originally intended but were too good to not be released in some fashion; maybe this assumption is way off base and Ellis did write and record these specifically as a solo work, but in any case, I am happy to be able to hear the single and its pleasant pop-y goodness.
