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The Regrets’s sophomore EP is every young lover’s dream

Release date: January 24th, 2019

Dan Ray January 24, 20191 Comment
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The Regrets’s sophomore EP is every young lover’s dream January 24, 20191 Comment

Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).

Photo courtesy of The Regrets

Getting over a breakup? Trying to get through it with a smile on your face? The Regrets’s new EP, Endless Desire, has got your back. This EP is filled with upbeat tempos that make it feel like you’re on the beach on a sunny day; however, the lyrics allude to a darker space of mind, such as “you watched me walk away / we haven’t spoken for a while” in fourth track “Swagger.” This roughly-16-minute, five-track EP listens like a mix between The Strokes and The Beach Boys — with that electric feel from garage rock and that relaxing vibe from surf music.

The first track, “Temporary Attachment,” starts off with some fuzz, as if you were listening to the song on a 40s-era radio. It brings that old-school rock sound and a nice, fast-paced drum beat that makes you want to dance the night away. The electric guitar adds to this feeling, pulling the listener in with its staticy sound that makes everyone feel happy to be alive. But, there’s a darker energy lurking in the chorus: “I’m glad that we took drugs together / and now I’m fine.” After an instrumental break, frontman Joel Azose chimes over and over, more frantically each time, “I’m fine / I’m fine / I’m fine / I’m fine,” sounding like he’s about to pass out in a drug-induced state of rapturous failure. It’s beautiful.

The Regrets have a knack for telling a story with as few words as possible. In second track “Under a Sideways Moon,” Azose sings, “and I promised you love without concern / and I promised it soon,” mixed on top of a happy, wave-like beat. It’s a track that screams of young love — of the sheer, utter rose-colored-glasses outlook marred by the lack of follow through from either lover. It’s fear mixed with a guitar line as sweet as saccharin.

“Houndstooth,” the longest tune on the EP at three minutes and 44 seconds, is wonderfully fuzzy. Lyrically similar to the previous tracks — it recounts meeting an old lover unhappy with their current flame: “you told me about your boyfriend / and the state that you are in” — the air in the mix creates a sense of yearning, like you want to reach out and grab it, but it’s always two millimeters out of reach.

“Swagger,” track four, is a departure from the desolate yet upbeat yearning of the previous tracks, when Azose sings, “I’ve been waiting by the phone / and I won’t wait anymore.” It’s a callback to those good ole’ middle school crushes — a la DJ Tanner in Full House. It seems as if this tumultuous relationship has finally been thrown aside, but, in finale track “Every Kiss (Feels Like It Could Be The Last),” we find our young lovers stuck back together again, “so thrilled [they] could die.” Fading out on a pained-sounding “feels like it could be the last,” this track doesn’t leave much hope for the relationship, but they are together, so maybe this EP isn’t a breakup album after all, but what you put on for make-up sex.

If so, it’s make-up sex on a waterbed in a 1970s, California, one-bedroom home, while your pot dealer, who is living in your basement for the time being, knocks out some killer drum fills while his best friend, a shaggy-haired kid wearing a button-up shirt, invents new surf-rock riffs on his cherry-red electric guitar that his parents would never approve of. They’re playing the soundtrack of your thrusts, and with every smack of a drum stick, you feel the water ripple beneath you.

Rycki Cruz contributed to this article

Endless Desire

Endless Desire
9.5

Vocals

 9.2/10

Instrumentation

 9.6/10

Production

 9.9/10

Lyricism

 9.0/10

Fun

 9.8/10

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Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).

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