That's it. As of right now, I'm no longer giving any credence to my expectations. None. Not even a little bit. If the next Backstreet Boys album turns out to be a mind-bendingly brilliant pastiche of death metal, avant-jazz, and Himalayan cave-wailing music, I won't even fucking blink. If Tim Kinsella decides to give up his wank 'n' roll lifestyle and become a hog farmer, it would elicit no more from me than a mumbled "figures..."

What has led me to completely abandon my expectations, instincts, and intuitions? A series of zeroes and ones, encoded on a small plastic disc, bearing the name that I now curse: Nathan Larson. It's a sad thing, too, because up until now, I could hardly have imagined myself not loving this man's work. For starters, he was partially responsible for Shudder to Think's Pony Express Record, one of the few albums that can lay claim to approaching absolute perfection. As if that weren't enough, his supergroup-of-sorts with Helium's Mary Timony and members of the Dambuilders, Mind Science of the Mind, released a truly excellent but tragically overlooked eponymous album in 1996.

Taking these facts into account, I expected I Must Learn to Live Alone to be yet another in a string of fine off-kilter post-punk records. The futuristic, angular cover art did nothing to contradict this expectation. I opened up the jewel case, popped the EP into my CD player, and waited for my world to be blown to bits.

And thus begins the EP's title track, with a distant, spooky guitar drone. I'm quaking with anticipation. I'm waiting for a demonic, illogical riff, a blast of guitar noise, something to bring the record to life. But just as I fully prepare myself to rock, I'm greeted with one of the single most disappointing things I've heard in ages: reverb-soaked, brushed drums, cheesy blues riffing, and a played-out, mind-waxingly dull chord progression. "My fucking god," I say to myself. "This had better get good fast."

But the more I wait for something the least bit interesting to happen, the more disappointing "I Must Learn to Live Alone" becomes. Mind Science of the Mind's delicate acoustic ballad "Does It Rain in Your Womb" saw Larson attempting Jeff Buckley-esque whiteboy soul, but exciting guitar rambling and spooky but beautiful lyrics made that song an undeniable success. "I Must Learn to Live Alone," with its super-glossy string section and gratuitous piano tinkling, seems utterly generic and uninspired. Trite lyrics like, "Love, do what you want/ For I must learn to live alone/ Or incinerate/ As lonely stars will do/ And walk me to the bitter well/ Of tears not shed for you," certainly don't help. Nor does the fact that Larson's over-dramatized vocal stylings often bear a striking resemblance to Jon Bon Jovi.

As the last seconds of "I Must Learn to Live Alone" trickled out of my speakers like sonic diarrhea, I could only hope that the song was some kind of one-off mistake, and that the rest of the EP would be significantly better. No such luck. In fact, the title track is without doubt the best thing to be found here. "If Only to See You" contains embarrassingly bad lyrics like, "Girl, the sun don't give a damn/ I want to turn around and work your land," amplified to suck by slick vocal multitracking. The title track is so by-the-book that it at least seems relatively smooth, but the EP's three remaining tracks are painfully awkward.

When, at the beginning of the EP's final song, "Heavenly Host," Larson intones "dooooo boooo!" in his best constipated faux-R&B; singer voice, you know it's over. Instead of blowing my world to bits, this EP left me on the verge of blowing chunks. With Shudder to Think and Mind Science of the Mind, Larson carved out a dynamic, distinctive style for himself, and with this EP, all of that style seems to have gone down the crapper, replaced by trite refuse. I have no idea why this has happened, nor do I venture to guess. I really don't care. All I know is that after listening to this record, the only thing I can foresee putting me in a state of serious surprise and shock would be Larson's forthcoming album, Jealous God, actually being halfway decent.

-Matt LeMay