Consumer Guide Album

The Paranoid Style: Underworld U.S.A. [Bar/None EP, 2017]
"We tried to figure out exactly the point of show business during this most lurid of all impasses," Elizabeth Nelson noted recently, and whether avocational indie counts as show business or not, it's clearly been a trial. The title tune is properly scary: "It's like the founders said the jaws of power are always open to devour," soon followed by "You dined on us so long you lost the taste for delicacy." But "I Believe U Believe U Can Fly" is the one great song on this EP because it torpedoes a catchphrase we figured out long ago. Other zingers of varying quality are dropped here and there--the throwaway "Langford's still an atheist" is one I like. But the lyrics tend opaque--pretty sure "Hawk Vs. Prez" is about Lester Young, for instance, but that took a lot of delving that only got me so far. What makes this lacuna doubly frustrating is that Nelson probably knows more about the ins and outs of Washington politics than any songwriter working, and it would be nice to think she could make something of what may not actually be an impasse. It would also be nice if she roped in a more limber rhythm section. A-