I’m digging these Let’s Pretend cassettes. They’re completely different and entertaining in weird and surprising ways. “Top Kill” starts off with a very obtuse verse that would serve as a springboard for the first of many nitrous-fueled choruses, if it weren’t stopped by a couple of long, awkward pauses that you can’t help but fill by asking, “What?” And then on “We All Go to Hell,” there’s a guitar solo that seems to have fought its way free from a junk heap somewhere, but only for a moment before the drums suck it back in and the song ends. And then on the last song, suddenly they’re a hardcore band or something? My only complaint: You can fit more than five songs on a tape.
–mp (Let’s Pretend / Dead Broke)