Album Review: The Snowy Owls - Summer EP

O, the love I have for those Snowy Owls. Undoubtedly some of the finest musician-types in Richmond's ridiculously fertile scene, the dudes recently unleashed a four-song EP dedicated to summer. Let's just say that was a good move on their part. The four songs collectively embody the steamy haze of deepest summer, and I expect once fall and winter roll around they'll sound just as pretty.

Summer, of all seasons, can be the most magical, the rarest of days, but by the same token feels the most like catching lightning in a bottle. It's here, and it's gone. To that end, "Time gets the best of us sometime," sings Owls mouthpiece Matt Klimas in the crunchy, droned-up hip shaker "All Summer Long," a song that takes what summer gives and splendidly so. "What Summer is For" has the season down pat, all languidly idyllic and drenched in romantic reverie.  

While I love the EP as a whole, there are a couple songs that particularly speak to my inner summer girl. My favorites bookend the EP, starting with the deliriously, just like honey goodness of "Feels Like Summer" and closing with the towering, beautiful bittersweet fuzz of "Next Summer," replete with guitar freakouts and an almost heavy air of something left unspoken.   

The EP really speaks to the effervescent, dreamlike spirit of summer, the tantalizing first weeks of what seems endless to the last weeks, when autumn waits in the wings and life begins to return to normalcy. If you're in search of the perfect late summer listen, look no further.