An Anthropologist On Mars EP / The Price of Salt EP

Justin Courtney Pierre, frontman of Motion City Soundtrack, has stayed active post-hiatus with an album of a mid-career honesty that captures the essence of the changing of seasons both in career and personal life.  In The Drink was both reassuring to fans that Motion City Soundtrack’s legacy would live on, but also respected the aging and maturing nature of the fanbase.  Three years later Pierre is back with a pair of EPs, both with their own distinct personality, but making for a collectively satisfying ten-tracks.

First up is An Anthropologist On Mars, a love letter to Pierre’s prototypical keyboard-fuelled 00s pop-punk.  Each song bounds along with effortless melody and a career’s worth of confidence.  Motion City Soundtrack has always distanced themselves from their peers through subtle but expert command of synth-integrated piano-rock.  Pierre continues the tradition of wrapping listeners in a warm blanket of pop as a reprieve from the everyday.  “Footsteps,” and “Promise Not To Change” are comforting and familiar examples of the style synonymous with Peirre’s body of work.  

That being said, An Anthropologist On Mars is lyrically darker than it is light, reflecting the layers of grey inherent in an audience at or approaching mid-life.  For instance, the closing statement on album opener “Dying to Know” states “…my life somehow goes on without me … I’m not quite in my body, I’m feeling a lot like an anthropologist on Mars.”  “Illumination” follows with the theme of introspection, “Used to be cool, I used to be very cool, Save for the acid wash, No regrets, Not a one,” announces Pierre, before unpacking the reality of looking in a mirror twenty years later in the passage, “…everything changed, My face has been rearranged, I don’t look like anyone, At least not like that anymore.”  This quiet contrast of uppity melody and dark reflective introspection give An Anthropologist On Mars a magnetic and lasting draw for an established fanbase.

Five months later, Pierre continues with The Price of Salt EP, the chronological and spiritual second half of this two part non-full length.  Opening with “Firehawk,” the band sets a slightly different tone, balancing melody with a coarser direction.  The track is a little fuzier and scrappier, channeling some subtle Fugazi charm and punctuating sugary verses with moments of screeching feedback.  The best example resides with “Oxygen Tank,” which distorts and embraces jarring reverb with skillful juxtaposition.  As a mid-EP track, the thinned out soundscape is an artistic risk that pays off in its placement being wedged between “The Hunter” and “Get Out of the Woods,” which serve as the most melodic of the bunch.

The EP ends with “At Least It’s Over,” presenting perhaps the EP’s most organic track, returning to Pierre’s instincts and Motion City Soundtrack traditions.  The track feels effortlessly familiar, offering a lyrical sense of closure and rhythmic combination of upbeat and melancholy as only Justin Courtney Pierre knows how.  This type of full circle return to common ground respects the need to balance risk and reward by  giving fans more of what they’ve come to know and love without allowing it to become stale.
An Anthropologist on Mars and The Price of Salt make for an exciting and immersive combined  ten tracks.  While both EPs have their own personality, they balance one another out with plenty of nuances between them.  An Anthropologist on Mars is a tad more traditional and easy flowing, while The Price Of Salt opts for a more jarring, and at times, experimental feel.  Pierre’s debut solo album, In The Drink, was everything Motion City Soundtrack fans could have hoped for when the band went on hiatus.  While we are technically still waiting for a follow-up full-length, An Anthropologist on Mars and The Price of Salt cumulatively serve as a satisfying  spiritual extension, and a darn fine one at that.

Note: Score is both cumulative and individual (both EPs at 4/5)