Atlanta, GA's Small Reactions have just released their brand new EP Your Face Replaces Mine! You can stream the EP now on all platforms, as well as purchase a digital copy via Bandcamp.
"I’m dying for your light,” Small Reactions’ singer and guitarist Scotty Hoffman sings on the band’s new EP, Your Face Replaces Mine. Serving as the brief refrain to “Dinner Song,” the line is perhaps more like a mantra for the band’s current state. Small Reactions has always written pop songs, but noise, grit, and reckless abandon helped them to not get too comfortable with the label “pop music.” This track, along with “Mineral Water,” “Aviator,”—both outtakes from the band’s 2021 LP New Age Soul—and “Ex-Lion Tamer,” a Wire cover initially included on a compilation by The Blog that Celebrates Itself out of Brazil, evince that Small Reactions are both punctual and exciting.
On “Dinner Song,” the band proves it isn’t afraid to release an unapologetically catchy single. Trimmed to a taught 3:02,
the song finds the band as relentless as ever, but its crystalline post-punk foundation is embraced head on. Polish might not be the right word (it never will be for Small Reactions), but clarity of sound and purpose is. 16th notes hi-hats, 12-string guitars, a kettle drum, and a file cabinet: it’s a good look.
“Mineral Water” finds the band successfully juxtapose the idea of a laid-back swagger. Here, the band shows why it made sense to leave the track off New Age Soul—simply put, it has all the trappings of a standalone single. With far less regard for structure and overall outcome, “Aviator” argues that bands can record an entire track including overdubs, vocals, the works, in 30 minutes. Studio time at the hot spots ain’t cheap, especially when there is a hard stop at 10PM. There was a plan many (many) years ago to perform Wire’s Pink Flag in full because who wouldn’t want to do that? Well, we never got around to it, but we did record “Ex-Lion Tamer” for some good friends in Brazil.
On Small Reaction’s Your Face Replaces Mine, the band is represented by four separate yet equally important songs. These are their stories." - Sean Zearfoss, Small Reactions
