Breaking up is hard to do. In the category of "less hard to do, but still somewhat uncomfortable" is reviewing a side project of a band that you've broken up with. The Letter E is a side project from June of 44 guitarist Sean Meadows, so as I perused its effects-laden yet unremarkable cover art, my eyes inevitably wandered over to the other side of room. As more than one tear hit my well-worn copy of Judy Blume's "Forever," my gaze stopped on a short stack of neglected June of 44 records gathering dust on a bookshelf.

I realized that I'd have to work through whatever feelings of hostility and resentment I was harboring for June of 44 in order to consider his second-cousin, the Letter E, objectively. What did I see in him in the first place? Oh, it seems like just yesterday that a friend from Louisville told me to check out this band that was playing downtown. Midway through the first song, I whispered to my friend Pam that I felt funny. She reminded me that I always "felt funny" after eating one too many tofu-pups. But I knew that this time it wasn't the fake meat, but real beats that brought on digestive pangs.

I couldn't take my eyes off the drummer, who held a firm maniacal grin suggesting that he might be a mere mortal along for the ride as his possessed sticks leapt off the skins like I'd never seen or heard before. The guitar progressions were certainly mathy, but also on a mission that seemed directed by something stronger than mere formula. I was sold, and the next day I bought (an album).

But this love did not last forever. The more material I heard, the more the notes seemed to glide over the same well-worn pathways. The guitar began to sound too methodical for my taste-- almost plodding and sterile. What I'd originally called "driven" I started to re-categorize as "relentless." Where was the vulnerability in this music? Was there a time when I even knew?

I saw June of 44 play again this fall, but this time I stood aloof and closer to the bar. I spent less time taken in by the music, affording more time to contemplate, "This room is filled with boys doing weird aggressive jerking motions with their necks. What the hell?" But disappointment and potential are two sides of the same coin, and we all know what W. Somerset Mougham once said, in regards to women's hearts, "They are like old china, none the worse for a break or two."

Just as a rose is a rose, and a side project is a side project, a tangent is still a tangent. Why am I spending so much time discussing a band that only shares one member in common with the group of musicians who made this EP? Let's put this on the table-- the only people who will ever think of buying this EP are fans of June 44. Few others will hear of it or care about it in any way. Thus, a comparison is especially relevant. The Letter E is benign background music-- the boy you never noticed walk in the room because you were too busy not-staring at his second-cousin who rocks more.

The only resounding similarity to June of 44 is, not surprisingly, the perfectly measured guitar-work. There is none of June of 44's passion (read: drums) here. While it's certainly pleasant to listen to, clocking in at just over 17 instrumental minutes, I'd like to be able to hold it to a higher mark in terms of technical innovation. The liner notes suggest that this EP isn't a sampling towards a more substantial future release. Rather, it's a historical document capturing music produced by a group of friends when they shared a loft in Williamsburg back in '97.

While few things make me cringe like the phrase "loft in Williamsburg," the Letter E doesn't irritate me the way that June of 44 does. That's probably because this is a recording that I would never have fallen in love with in the first place. What can be made of all this displaced melodrama? A flat 5.0.

-Kristin Sage Rockermann