Diet Cig burst out of the Hudson Valley college town and musical hotbed New Paltz, N.Y., this January with a memorable name and an origin story like something from a microbudget romantic comedy. Singer Alex Luciano and drummer Noah Bowman met at a house show when she interrupted a set to ask him for a lighter; a few months later, they were playing shows and getting ready to record their first songs at a studio in New Paltz. Over Easy, their debut EP, is the product of that labor, a collection of brisk, personal pop-punk that recalls '90s bands like Beat Happening or Tiger Trap in its simplicity and Eternal Summers in its tone.
It's not hard to get to the core of the songs on Over Easy. Built mostly out of Bowman's frenzied drumming and Luciano's distorted guitar and vocals, they're simple, propulsive, and monochromatic; they're dense, but not rich with detail. They mostly serve as vehicles for Luciano's reflections on the life changes, relationships, and social anxiety that characterize extended adolescence. It's a time that's served as fodder for more than its share of music, but Luciano comes at it with a keen observational eye and a fresh perspective. She turns opener "Breathless", an anthem for people living independently for the first time, into something with character through her use of location and detail (like the fact that she's still missing a shower curtain). In other moments, she has a knack for memorable and catchy phrasing that reminds me of Dashboard Confessional, specifically the way every song threatened to break into a cathartic group singalong in a live setting. When she hammers out the line, "and I am sweating and I'm/ betting you are, too!" in the chorus of "Pool Boyz", it's easy to imagine a roomful of people yelling it with her and revelling in the song's heat and pent-up lust.
There are moments on Over Easy where Diet Cig crosses the line from relatable young adult angst into petulant, immature whining. There are pieces of "Scene Sick" that are appealing on their own—the way its slow shuffle explodes into a speedy romp, the nicely varied percussive elements—but when tossed together with Luciano's powdered sugar vocal, it's painfully saccharine. It's also based around a complaint that's remarkably insular, namely the oppressiveness of the titular scene; it's a sentiment that likely resonates with people who have spent a lot of time embedded in the music industry, but without that context it hews a little closer to straightforward whining. Closer "Harvard", fuller and funnier and more dynamic, does a better job of conveying that kind of annoyance by focusing on a snobby, jerky ex.
There's obvious talent and light in these songs, though it's also obvious that Diet Cig are still in their infancy. (In spending time with the EP, I kept coming back to Eternal Summers' "Lightswitch" as a best case scenario for songs of this length and complexity: more colour, more depth, more space, more intensity.) There's promise here, but Over Easy barely scrapes the 10 minute mark, and the duo's next release will be the one that really proves their worth.
