The Republic Tigers

No Land’s Man EP

The Republic Tigers seem to exist in some alternate universe where all music is created via focus groups and number-crunching accountants looking to maximize returns on their investment. And considering the label they are associated with—Chop Shop Records, an imprint of Atlantic started by a someone who made her name placing middling pop music in hit television shows—that might actually be the case.

The four songs on this EP are the kind of easy-on-the-ears, MOR material that would work well playing over the closing credits of a movie or soundtracking a montage sequence on Grey's Anatomy or Gossip Girl (not surprisingly, one of Republic Tigers' songs has already ended up on aGG soundtrack). It's empty-calorie rock that disappears after the last song fades away.

This might seem unnecessarily harsh, but it appears as if any playfulness or daring that was in the band's earlier work (check out their fine self-titled EP from 2007) has been roughly hacked away. In its place is a continuation of the lukewarm pop that appeared on their full-length, 2008's Keep Color. It's all jangly guitars, blasé synthesizer lines and melodic hooks you can see coming from a mile away. For some, this is manna from heaven. For the rest of the music-loving world, it's like being force-fed comfort food.

Chop Shop/Atlantic

“The Infidel”