By Hannah Clemens

Don’t let the subservient nature of their EP’s title fool you – somewhere in The Envy Corps’ practice space, between a Marshall half stack and a Fender Rhodes, there are charts and graphs, a map with pushpins marking territory already conquered, and perhaps a chalkboard covered with frontman Luke Pettipoole’s master plan. He has it all figured out, and there’s a motive behind every second of “I Will Write You Love Letters If You Tell Me To” (even the title itself, which reads like the first two lines of a haiku that ought to end with “Cherry blossoms fall”).

Step one towards world domination was accomplished back in 2004, when The Envy Corps (then just two people, Pettipoole and bassist David Yoshimura) released the full-length, “Soviet Reunion.” The first recruits were conscripted as “Soviet Reunion” climbed the CMJ charts and sold out within a year. In the wake of numerous accolades and early comparisons to Radiohead, U2, and Coldplay, The Envy Corps gained two new members and formulated step two: attack songs.

“Love Letters” is full of attack songs, carefully engineered hybrids of dissonant elements that spring upon you when you least expect them. There’s an ode to Sylvia Plath that is unaccountably uplifting, a reference to a goddess of Norse mythology in the middle of a dance song, and a divorce ballad that crescendos into a frantic, emotional highlight of the EP. And like any successful attack, Love Letters is concise and swift, leaving you changed. In “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” the citizens use mood organs to transport themselves from one emotion to another. It would have been cheaper to use these seven songs.

Step two and step three are closely linked – the attack songs will generate envy in everyone who has ever attempted to write music. Lush instrumentation accompanies Pettipoole’s impressive range and fervent melodies, which often move so fast it’s hard to catch the poetry in the lines (” Tongues of hell drip with a four beat count/Fizzing up the sedatives that flew into my mouth like locusts”). The Envy Corps tease us with a hint of their live show on “Story Problem,” where two sets of volunteer backup singers duel with wordless accompaniment, egging on Brandon Darner’s corybantic guitar riffs. And amid all these uptempo anthems are “Rooftop” and “Movement In The Corner Of A Room,” comparatively sedate tracks that prove The Envy Corps can move you without distortion and heavy bass.

Envy may be a deadly sin, but you won’t consider “Love Letters” a guilty pleasure. And if you survive steps two and three, you will have no choice but to eagerly await further instructions.

www.theenvycorps.com
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