song with “Can you feel me smile into your palm / With the hand that’s covering my mouth? / And I hope I’m not as stupid as I sound / Would you cut me out if I put out?”

 

These lyrics seem to tell the story of an romantic interest who treats you like crap but the narrator’s trapped in the terrible relationship. The last part “Would you cut me out if I put out” touched me because I feel that plenty of young girls go through situations like the one described in this song. It’s a sad thing to feel like you have to offer yourself in that way in order to keep someone around. I think when she’s “smiling on his palm,” she doesn’t mind whichever form of abuse he’s putting her through because she’s desperate for his affection. The situation depicted in “Sunhouse” is a terrible yet relatable one, but the Philadelphia band managed to craft it into a beautiful song.

 

Little Big League’s second song “Pure Bliss Choices” is about an adult who is purely irresponsible and acts if their head in the clouds away from reality. “What can I say? / I’ve got a love for the game and a bad taste in active adult living,” Zauner simply confesses. Like the band’s first offering on the split, it recounts a story listeners can easily identify with -- especially as most of the release’s target audience struggles with growing up.

 

Ovlov delivers the EP’s last song, “The Great Crocodile.”  Let me start off by telling you how this reptile caught my attention. I was enjoying the EP with a fellow music lover. We were giving it our full attention -- the TV was cut off, cell phones were out of our hands, and the smell of hemp hung in the air. At that point, we were giggly, but grew serious once we noticed how long the song’s intro was.

 

Many guitar and drum riffs later, lead singer Steve Hartlett finally asserts his dominance as he faces an unknown enemy. He makes this battle known, with lines like “Feed your troll, but you won’t read my scroll. /…It’s in your way to figure out what it’s all about.” Huh? I hoped the next verse made more sense. It didn’t. Hartlett continues: “Fear your fold, but you don’t need what’s sold./… It’s been your way to figure out what it’s all about. / It’s not easy, but either way, you should try.”

 

So he’s telling us our duty as listeners was to figure out what the hell was going on in this song. It wasn’t easy, but we tried anyway. Our concentration was broken when he urged on his nemesis like this:  “Beat my poll, but you won’t eat my roll.” What? What poll? And where does the roll come into play? Needless to say, we burst out laughing until we gained enough composure to hear the last set of lyrics, which were the only to truly come together for us -- “It’s not part of the plan for you to understand.” This was the first song I’ve ever heard by Ovlov and one of the most interesting songs I’ve heard in a long time. My listening partner and I were definitely bamboozled and entertained.

 

Considering it doesn’t have many songs, this split still felt complete. The three songs offer us things we can relate to -- as well as some comedy paired with intense guitar and drum riffs. I just wish that there was one more song by Ovlov to even out the band’s contirbutions. Using “The Great Crocodile” as Ovlov’s only song on the EP made me want to look up more of Ovlov’s music. I’ve also taken a genuine liking to Little Big League after this EP. I love their sound as a band and specifically dig the way Michelle Zauner sings. Both bands definitely shone on this EP and they each may have won themselves a new fan!