Artist: Miracle of '86
Album: Last Gasp (EP)
Label: Immigrant Sun Records
Tracks: 6
Length: 18:16
Review by: James Hake

Ha--if my mention of Skillet gives you much of a sense of where I come from in musical knowledge and enjoyment, so be it--at least you know more of my context.

From Brooklyn, Miracle of 86 takes its name after the World Champion New York Mets. They formed in ’94 as 7th graders covering Megadeth songs and such. They appeared in Deep Elm’s ’98 Emo Diaries, Vol. 2, and debuted on Immigrant Sun a self-titled album in late 2001. They released Kevin Kolanowski--a short album with a percussionist of the same name doing “Violent Femmes-style drumming”--a few months later in ’02, which contains the song “When It’s on My Mind” that also appears here. They released Every Famous Last Word in ’03 on Lakeshore Records. The Last Gasp EP (Immigrant Sun, ’04) seems to have two or three new songs with some previously released ones revisited.

25-year-old Singer Kevin Devine has seemingly done quite a bit of his own work along the way--as Kevin Devine & The G****** Band, fellow musicians in Miracle of 86 and elsewhere--with Circle Gets the Square (Immigrant Sun ’02), the short Traveling the EU (Defiance, ’03), Make the Clocks Move (Triple Crown ’03), and soon, Split the Country, Split the Street (Triple Crown, due May ’05).

Last Gasp EP (Immigrant Sun, ’04)
1. Oh Dakota
2. Surprise Me
3. When It’s on My Mind
4. We Keep You Honest
5. Jesus Christine
6. Every Famous Last Word

Having only vague knowledge of genres, I call this pop rock with clean electric guitar sounds that in my mind reference the previous few decades back to the ’50s and ’60s. I actually like this EP pretty well--in the sense that I enjoy and am struck by it when it is playing, but do not quite  fascinatedly itch to hear it.

The vocalist, Kevin Devine, reminds me of Skillet singer John Cooper (Skillet is an arguably Christian band), with that somewhat high pitched, sometimes scratchy voice--like he has something he needs to hock out--a nice pop voice, at times pretty expressive. Vaguely, Devine sounds like a more punk pop, slightly less raspy Rod Stewart. The fifth track of Last Gasp, a slow jam rock ballad called “Jesus Christine,” features a different singer who seems to have a lower natural voice and sounds very vaguely akin to, say, Joey Ramone, except more laid back and “sweet.”

The cover art strikes me as this annoying sort of gross, cut-and-paste late-80s “hippie” look that I don’t like, save for the multicolored, stretched barcode repeated in the design. The rest is white and black block background with treble clefs and musical notes copied and pasted, with photographic pieces of flower faces, records, and guitar strings--and dollops of magenta acrylic paint running down the white parts.

I expected this EP to fall under the kind of pop rock that I have found uninteresting lately--whether it’s me in my current season of musical taste, or the quality of straightforward pop rock I have heard lately, I don’t know. I thought it would be music with no weird zing to it, but driven by a nice, radio-friendly pop voice. I did to an extent find what I described on this release--it has generic or commonplace aspects to the sound, as well as some of the all too common subject matter of romance and hyper-focus on relationships, as well as a sort of bored, depressed angst about life and the world.

But, however common the genre and subject matter, this feels still honest and quite well-written both musically and lyrically. They seem to have a tip of the hat to older work, which adds to the interest in already quite fair songwriting and lyrics. Recalling some mood or catchy moment on the CD has a few times prompted my pulling it out to hear it--even if not to the extent of, say, the sort of pop rock and lyricism of my current fascinations Destroyer or Starflyer 59.

Allow me to point out a couple of practices Miracle of 86 seems to have that I love on this EP. First, I relish it when the singer has an extended “run” of lyrics sung without a significant break. This seems to happen at a bridge or near-conclusion to a song--and presently the singer divulges several interesting thoughts that come to his mind as he sees the end of the song coming--and they’re just sung with a nice flow. The longer he goes, like keeping the ball in the air, back and forth, back and forth in a good rally--the greater the delight to hear it, especially when it builds to a great thought.

A second draw that Miracle of 86 has on me is some of their lyrical content. Granted, I relate to the common “angst” about life, self, and the world mentioned earlier that many--perhaps too many--artists and music enthusiasts in my little world express. But, in “Surprise Me” (which apparently originally appeared in their ’00 self-titled debut), they not only check me as part of the world around them--“I want to meet a painter that’s not pretentious”--but they ironically and truthfully cut themselves--“I want to see rock ’n’ roll that is inventive.”

The final track, “Every Famous Last Word”--a somewhat stripped down, pretty version of the song that appeared on an ’03 album of the same title--expresses desire for worth, about suicide attempts and plans. Devine lets himself sound messy and shows honest and interesting, if numbingly common and depressing, thoughts of someone longing not to be unique like everybody else--but unique and special, distinct, wise, better--not so much “superior to others” as “better like himself.” Common “rock/pop/indie” motifs aside, I appreciate these guys as artists and as people for how their work presents itself. This release is respectable--it’s par--which, in the current world of pop and indie rock, is above average.