The Afflictions, a Chicago band that fit comfortably within the constraints of the current "garage" milieu, run through six songs in fourteen minutes on Peotone, their debut EP. This is about ten minutes too many; though they mix things up a bit with the addition of saxophone and the absence of a bassist, the Afflictions bring on board the same strengths and weaknesses of most garage acts. Their high energy and simplicity make them easy to absorb and enjoy, but also bring them to the brink of monotony. The eternal struggle continues-- how do you keep rock and roll basic without it becoming boring?

Over the course of Peotone, The Afflictions bounce between ideas, between success and failure, and the direction they choose to pursue in the future will likely make or break the group. They're blessed with a strong frontman in Jeremiah McIntyre, and a knack for coming up with agreeable hooks, but the presentation here undercuts more than a few good moments. It's a low-fidelity affair, and though I imagine the band is dedicated to this aesthetic, their songwriting style leads to cluttered compositions, a problem only exacerbated by muddy sound.

At the risk of making a wildly misleading comparison, The Afflictions, like Sly and the Family Stone during the Whole New Thing era, are trying to pack in as much exciting material as possible without recognizing the point of negative returns. And another stumbling block: the band have difficulty embracing their music wholeheartedly, instead hiding behind ironic detachment in an effort to ensure that the audience knows they're more intelligent than their naïve predecessors. Dumb/funny song titles like "You're Nice to Look At" and "Let's Make a Mess" provide a couple of good chuckles, but overall leave the disconcerting impression that the music they're making is deeply inauthentic, or at least conflicted.

However, the two best songs on Peotone suggest that The Afflictions are capable of becoming an impressive band. Sequenced fourth and fifth respectively, "Janet Style" and "Am I Dreaming or Am I Dead" pare down the sound to the essentials, and easily outperform their peers. With a clearer sense of purpose, these two cuts prove the band doesn't need to reach quite so far to maintain a high level of excitement, especially since their tunes tend to clock in well under three minutes. If they want to stand out from the many other bands shooting for similar targets-- and they very well could-- they should build upon this pair's strengths instead of meandering toward the realms of the snarky intellectual interlopers poisoning the very music the band's trying to play.

-Brian James, December 11th, 2002