Open your wallet, please. How much cash have you got? None? Maybe a couple bucks? Hell, maybe you're loaded, for all I care. Let's say, though, for the purposes of this hypothetical, that you have $7 on you. What would you do with this particular amount of money? You could eat a healthy or, at least, sufficient lunch. You could buy a cheap paperback; I hear Chicken Soup for the Soul is a real page-turner. You could go to Radio Shack and buy a couple adapters. What kind? Shit, who knows. Doesn't matter. They're around $3.50 a piece. Or you could, amongst other possibilities generated by even the most limited of imaginations, buy a CD EP.

That's right, a CD EP. This lovely new invention holds the capability for true power for any indie band. It generally runs for about $7. It can be instrumental in building up a group's reputation. It can be short but sweet, promising true potential and building hype for a band's debut LP. It can be a way to keep the impatient fans of an already well-established group happy by dispensing the tracks they've got to spare. It can be a way to take that a step further and include about 55 minutes worth of almost entirely unreleased material, half of which is unlisted. (Reference: Modest Mouse, Interstate 8, Up, 1996.) And the price stays at $7 as long as you call it an EP.

Taking the Modest Mouse example into consideration, it's inevitable that you will find the opposite to be true. By which I mean, sometimes a band just wants to release something for the hell of it. It'll probably end up ripping your fans off, but what does that matter? It's only $7. And with the Let's Go! EP, the Apples in Stereo have done just this. A sufficient review of this lackluster release can be completed in three paragraphs, beginning after this linebreak.

Hi. The Let's Go! EP contains five tracks. Only one of them is entirely new; that is, it is not a song or a version of a song that has already been released elsewhere. It is called "If You Want to Wear a Hat." It confirms, once and for all, that the Apples in Stereo are now a children's band. The first two lines go like this: "If you want to wear a hat/ You better get one that looks better than that." Robert Schneider sings them in the cutest fashion he can possibly muster, with companion Hilarie Sidney lending similarly twee backup. Imagine this against a completely soulless Jackson 5 groove and an annoying, beeping synthesized rhythm, and you've got the Apples' new direction. It does not leave much room for hope.

This is the kind of infantile direction that had been only hinted at by a couple of tracks from last year's The Discovery of a World Inside the Moone, and further clarified by the song "Signal in the Sky (Let's Go!)," the parenthetical title track to this EP. There are not one but two versions of this selection from the recent Powerpuff Girls tribute album. Let me repeat that, because I feel you have not fully taken in this information. Two versions of a Powerpuff Girls tribute. This fact alone carries the Apples just that much farther into the toddler moshpit. The song, in tradition with the subject matter, is nauseatingly cloying. The included demo version is simply backed by acoustic guitar and drum machine, but manages to have a virtually identical effect on the listener, with the exception of the noticeable lack of a borrowed "Destination Unknown" synth riff.

There are two tracks left. One is another acoustic demo: a version of "Stream Running Over," originally one of the more slightly decent tracks from Moone. It's just as pleasant as the original, but not essential by any means. Then there's their live recording of "Heroes and Villains," which can be found elsewhere-- specifically, on their Live in Chicago MP3-only release through Emusic. Once again, kudos for giving a semi-underexposed Beach Boys classic some exposure, but their version doesn't quite make the cut. The missing harmonies flush a lot of the color out of the song and its originally inherent beauty. And after all is said and done, we have a thoroughly disposable piece of plastic.

Still have that $7? Good. Go get some lunch. You deserve it.

-Spencer Owen