"It's the year of the red panda, check your calendar," because it is indeed the year of the red panda. Wrecking Crew Red Panda Bears followed up their debut EP Year of The Red Panda with a second EP. This one titled AEIOU and Sometimes W. This one is just five tracks because they like to torture us and leave us wanting for more music and that's okay. That's the perfect spot to leave us. With just five tracks I don't see why we can't take this one track by track.
Y.O.T.R.P. - I'll be honest, I love this song. It gives you that old school Rage Against The Machine type feel with the warped vocals yelling crazy stuff like "Listen man, we beating demons, how you gonna beat up a demon my nigga." It just kicks off the whole thing with this crazy energy. It's already a high energy track but the adlibs just add a level of braggadocio to it.
Your Mother - For some reason this song really reminds me of Johnny Cash's song "Don't Take Your Guns To Town." The themes of the song, melodies and everything else are completely different. The only similarities are shooting a man and a mother. In reality it's a song about a man killing the lover that his child's mother took. Meanwhile the mother is warning him to not come near the house. About 1:28 there comes a part of the song where it's almost pure emotion. Same lyrics over and over again but it kind of lets you know how serious it is. It's a nice song where you get this happy upbeat almost funky vibe and you're just jamming out to it, until that switch then you go back and listen to realize it's not exactly a happy song.
Wild Pandas -When you can say "She eat the hot dog with the mustard, she eat the hot dog with the mustard," but people just keep vibing with it you might just have a hit on your hand. It keeps that same energy from "Y.O.T.R.P." I don't want to say it's a more complicated song, but it just seems more scripted. If "Y.O.T.R.P." is a convenience store robbery, then this is a casino heist. It also has two of my favorite lyrics on the album.
Check my wrist, twenty dollar watch, better watch your bitch, be there in a jiff
I'm gon take the crown melt it down and add it to my smileI mean, if the same guy is going to take your girl with a twenty dollar watch and melt the crown that's crazy right? That's just some cool stuff on another level. That's just plain wild which makes sense. These pandas have to be wild.
Young Medusa - If you're a fan of ballad's this is going to be the song for you. It's a stripped down track with a much more mellow vibe for most of the song. It stands out from the other three tracks for sure. "Young Medusa," is like the love song about the girl you know you shouldn't have fallen in love with but you did. She's no good for you but she's got it all. This is the song where you're going to get full blown singing and you're going love it.
Lionhearted Romance - This track isn't actually from the group, instead it's from Eliy Orcko. It's a nice mix of a few genres. I might be trash because I'm in love with the hook for this song. There's nothing wrong with the verse but that hook is just something else. There's also this instrumental break at about 2:58 that you can just vibe to followed by some harmonizing until the end. It's good. It fits right in with the rest of the EP.
I can not tell a lie, I think I'm a fan. Two EPs and there hasn't been a track I disliked. Maybe they're really that good and just never have an off day. Maybe they take their time to craft really well thought out projects so we never hear the bad stuff. I don't know. What I do know is, Wrecking Crew Red Panda Bears provide great music and they're masters at giving you just enough to want more.
You should buy Darrell's Book, watch him on the Blerds Online YouTube Channel or The CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts.
