With Roy, Dave Verellen and Brian Cook have traded the Heavy technical frenzy of their old band, Botch, for a sparklingly melodic set that simmers with the urgent, nervy non-sequiturs of Neutral Milk Hotel and Pavement. We Don't Evolve laments the daily detritus of modern life -- cancer, carpal tunnel, and unmade prime-time TV beds. This sense of desperation in the lyrics bleeds into the Americana brush-strokes that tinge Tacomatose's corners -- these elements are what help update Roy's guitar-heavy indie rock rattle. T Town Concrete applies musings on the same sense of complacency to the residents of Tacoma, Washington. In the background, spidery, trebly guitars build a fuzzy discourse. The drums pound in the track's overture, but it can't -- doesn't seem to want to -- hide its debt to the driving anthemics of mid-to late-'90s indie. Bolivian Army Lays Siege to Seattle is a bitter ode to all the Meth users in the Tacoma metro area ("My hometown has got a problem/With people cooking ephedrine/Shady men guarding trailers brandishing shotguns"), while Lightweights Exclusively blisses out a bit between bipolar vocals and bursts of crashing percussion that return from the EP's beginning. Botch fans take note -- the similarities here are in personnel only. Nevertheless, the future looks promising, if a bit neurotic, for Roy. Recommended. ~ Johnny Loftus, Rovi

1		T Town Concrete
2		The Bolivian Army Lays Siege to Seattle
3		We Don't Evolve
4		Tell It True
5		Lightweights Exclusively