Catastrophe

Jef Otte And The Fatality completely understands economy—their latest EP, Catastrophe, was put to tape live, using nothing more than a single condenser mic—but effectual minimalism seems to elude the band entirely. The Fatality struggles through a six-cut, 20-minute collection that could have potentially been an impressive four-song, 11-minute EP.

Catastrophe has a solid base: Lead guitarist Sam Murphy’s work pulls at punk’s formative years, drawing on Tom Verlaine and Voidoids’ Robert Quine with sparse and abstract licks. The space around Murphy’s razor-thin swipes gives way to bassist Brian Balestrieri’s rubbery low ends, splitting the difference between battered funk/disco grooves and the faux-Caribbean sounds favored by early British punkers. Otte juggles keys and guitar, putting most of his energy into his vocal duties. It all sounds good, sure, but in smaller doses, it would have been even better.

“Some Days” melds Bowery art-punk with pop, while “Out Into Space” splices some late-career Interpol with the big-room recording ambience. But both tracks stretch past the five-minute mark—twice as long as they’re worth. “The Private Detective,” Catastrophe’s best song, is unsurprisingly one of its shortest, rolling through a semi-reggae (more The Police than The Wailers) bassline, centering on one of the band’s strengths. When the act strays from this, things get ugly: “We Couldn’t Work It Out” is hookless piano pop, and “Blue April,” another clumsy break-up ballad, harps variations on a fundamentally uninteresting guitar riff. Good albums are a course in restraint, and Catastrophe—an overload of too many lyrics and overly long songs—could benefit greatly from simply just cutting back.