Hi-Standard – Love Is A Battlefield
(Fat Wreck)

Hi-Standard are a band that makes me happy. Listening to their music puts me in a good mood.

When they put out a new album that also makes me happy. Am I happy when they put out a 4 song cd containing just under 10 minutes of music? Yes. But not as happy as I would be if it was a full length cd.

It seems that Fat Wreck Chords likes to release little EPs like this just to suck money out of poor saps like myself. Normally I refuse to fall prey to this scheme of theirs, but you know everyone has their breaking point. For Hi-Standard, I must make an exception.

Originally I thought this was a re-issue of some really early Hi-Standard material, so I was worried that it would be poor quality. In actuality I think it is just the North American release of an EP that came out last year on Pizza Of Death Records in Japan. So I was pleased to find that the album is fairly well produced and sounds just like Hi Standard’s other Fat Wreck releases.

The cd seems to have a bit of a theme to it. The songs are all about love. How sweet. Two of the four songs are covers, but surprisingly enough, the song entitled “Catch A Wave” is not one of them. It is an original song, although it is clearly a tribute to the Beach Boys as it starts off with some great Beach Boys-style harmonized vocals. The disappointing thing is that the song is all of 60 seconds long. The actual cover tunes are “This Is Love” and “Can’t Help Falling In Love”. I recognize the latter as an Elvis song, but I don’t know where the first one is from.

Anyways, the songs are all basically laidback power pop songs. They have the trademark Hi-Standard singing and cool Japanese accents, and they are a lot of fun. It’s perfect summer music. It would have been nice if there were more songs, but I guess I’ll take what I can get. — Sean

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