Spectreview: Iffin – When The Paper Graves

Released: April 3, 2021

Art-Rock
(DIY Pop)
(Alternative)

-SPRING GREEN-

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There was a period around ten years ago, right before the rise of poptimism, when the most exciting thing you could do as a musical act was fit pop melodies into the strangest of boxes. I sense that quality reflected in Cas Kaplan’s newest EP under Iffin. When The Paper Graves (the title a malapropism of a Yi Sang poem) pairs fragile, trebly DIY pop a la Cleaners From Venus with the simple pop structures of the old classics, albeit the ones more recently redone by the new classics. Recorded to tape and then digitized, the EP feels both warm and chilly simultaneously, with Kaplan’s off-kilter guitar melodies the star of the show.

The biggest takeaway from these songs (as well as those on his debut EP, chime sweet cage) is that Kaplan knows how to absorb the sweet parts of any context. Single “An Album” shines with a thin, sinusoidal guitar line that takes the lead over even thinner drums and a poignantly-muted vocal line. Everything else is similarly saccharine, from her jaunty cover of Animals That Swim’s “Smooth Steps” to the hard-droning “Not a Candle” to the burning candle of its finale. Because it’s an EP there’s not a lot of room for things to dip, and yet each song earns its inclusion through a unique identity that’s connected to the whole by properly-chilly production.

Though it’s only four tracks, it feels more like seven thanks to the spacey interludes that conclude each. These feel less necessary because they pad out what would normally be pristine standalone songs, but in traditional art-rock fashion they do counterbalance the poppiness with a sprinkling of moody dissonance. That helps cohere the EP into a complete portrait, one that hits the way a brisk winter day might properly invigorate the soul.

Personally, I don’t think there’s a point where breezy melodies like this went out of style, and When The Paper Graves does an excellent job at mixing those simple pleasures with both a surreal meditativeness and a measured confrontational edge. Iffin might a virtually unknown act even in Seattle, but based on the music alone I’ll be damn excited to catch a set once we’re back to some semblance of normal.

Recommended for whereabouts unknown.