Feast or Famine – Edmonton & Company

Edmonton’s ska-punk act Feast or Famine are back with their sophomore album, Edmonton & Company – a seven song EP of energetic, toe-tapping punk that picks up from, and improves upon, their debut.

The first thing you’ll notice when you pop up in the album is that Edmonton & Company is, first and foremost, a fun album. It’s delivered with a happy-go-lucky feeling that comes through as soon as the slow guitar intro to Another Pandemic fades into the thundering bass line. The upstroke picks up and the near-reggae tempo builds as the bands sings about wanting to let go after a hard day’s work. The lyrical topic turns serious, depicting the world through media headlines but the vibe stays alive and happy all the way through.

The whole EP has that mentality. They never get too analytical or political – the most serious being the oil-influenced Cowboy Trail – but don’t sit back with simple drinking songs either.  Instead they have a real-life look at the way of the world and how the average person reacts to what they’re faced with (Try and Fail being the prime example).

While the whole album is fun, there are a few missteps that get thrown in as well. Take Palms Over Drunk; the near-polka song sees the band taking a page from Mad Caddies’ All-American Badass’ textbook with a fast paced sing along. It plays through as one of the highlights of the EP but is held back from an overly long instrumental bridge that clocks in at over a minute and a half in length. The bridge itself isn’t bad – it has that nice polka feel to it – but it’s too long and slows down the momentum of the tune; essentially throwing a wrench into the middle of the track. Had they slimed it down to even a twenty second bridge it could’ve worked, but a minute and a half is just too long.

Speaking about misplaced instrumentals, there’s also the fifty second banjo-led Interlude that, once again, feels out of place. The soft, somewhat calming instrumental has the potential to build up to something epic and would be a perfect introduction to an album – or even a song – but instead leads nowhere and fades out as quickly as it began. Oddly enough, it’s the fullest sounding track on the album production wise, whereas a few other tunes could use a slight punch.

Still, as a whole – Feast or Famine have delivered a commendable EP worthy of multiple replays. The three vocalists intertwine to offer a nice spice of variety and some very enjoyable sing-along choruses; and Edmonton & Company is a fun filled ska-pop-punk EP.