Huge changes and far- reaching advances have been rocking Pitchfork recently, the biggest of course being the purchase of our first NBA expansion franchise. The whole investment came about after a drunken Brent DiCrescenzo and Ryan Schreiber attended a Minnesota Timberwolves preseason game and Brent noted "how pussy and retarded" the arena music was. Watching Stephan Marbury dribble up the court to Barenaked Ladies at 150 decibles is nauseating. The next day we bought a new franchise just to show how much timeout music can rock. But now we need a mascot name! In honor of the rock and roll we love, we're going to name our team after a cool group. Right now, the least imposing name I can think of is The Gloria Record. Or, even worse a trendy singular mascot like The Nashville Gloria Record.

And it's not because the name just sounds stupid and wouldn't fit on teal caps. We want the name to strike fear and awe into opponents! The lacrymose sap that the Gloria Record crawl through on their first EP strikes less fear than Fighting Rainbows or Heat. Two key members of the Gloria Record have roots in the old emo final four team, Mineral. Mineral moved a legion of hearts, if not just by copying bands like Sunny Day Real Estate. And that's fine and swell, but the Gloria Record sounds pretty much exactly the same. Except even more boring. Yearning to be softer and prettier, the Gloria Record ads more acoustic guitars, ebows, and time Mineral's already- tired sound.

Singer/ guitarist Chris "My voice and lyrics have always been the weakest part of my bands" Simpson continually pulls his vocal chords in stretched whines to near snapping, like hot mozzerella. No lyric sheet is included with the EP, but perhaps this was to keep the touchy people at Hallmark Cards from suing. Amateur poetics like "being lonesome" and "snow" and "the sun" and "you" and "love" float in a blurry mobile, lulling you to sleep. And please allow me to take a stand and ask for an across- the- board cessation on the use of seasonal nouns in emo music. Please, no more "December" and "October" and "Summer" and "Fall" and "Winter." Listening to this music becomes aurally analogus to flipping through Polaroids of fields shot through a moving car window. At some point during a long drive across Nebraska, you might see a spectacular sunset, but after eight hours you just get extremely sick of miles and miles of flat and corn.

This is the downfall of the Gloria Record, their monotonous emotion. In fact you can't call even call this "emotional" music, because "emotional" typically refers to a process of wavering between contrasting emotional states. Rollercoasters and PMS are emotional, clinically depressed people are not. The worst part is that even at EP- length, the languid ennui of the Gloria Record drags. They spend entirely too much energy on sounding "pretty" and "melodic" and "sad." And yes, to its credit, it's intricately woven, detailed and pleasant. But hey, so is a Swiss watch, and you don't see people listening to them tick for hours.

-Brent DiCrescenzo