EP of the Day: The Comfies-Close to Me

We're all about follow-up here at Absolute Powerpop, and some of you may remember a few months ago I touted a band called The Comfies, but they had only released a couple of tracks on a compilation disc (when they were known as Harper) and hadn't had their own disc out yet.

Well, as you can tell from the title of this post and the pretty picture above, they do now, the EP Close to Me, which has an official street date of this Tuesday, October 10. Only two of the tracks ("Medicine", "Your Sunshine") were familiar from their earlier myspace offerings, so I'll highlight the "new" stuff. The title track is a great slice of power pop, and I emphasize the "power". I threw the Superdrag comparison around quite a bit in the previous post, and it continues to apply. They're also reminiscent of their label mates The Rewinds, and just might be joining them and bands like Edmund's Crown in the burgeoning subgenre of "Southern power pop". "That's What She Gets" follows the title track, and it's another melodic gem, a midtempo number rocks yet has a Posies/Teenage Fanclub to it. "In My Room" isn't a cover of the Beach Boys classic and doesn't sound like Brian Wilson at all, but it's yet another great midtempo track (that rocks in the middle eight), and features some nice female harmonies. There's really not a bad track on this EP, and the acoustic one-and-a-half minute track "Dear Miss Anderson" is a nice coda.

Check out "Close to Me" as well as the two older tracks at their myspace page, and you can order it here for the reasonable price of $6.98. I won't be surprised to see it popping up at Not Lame and Kool Kat before long as well. It's gratifying to see that my instincts on these guys were right, and they've come through with a true EP of the Year candidate.