Though the creative nucleus of the Fresh & Onlys consists of frontman Tim Cohen and bassist Shayde Sartin, guitarist Wymond Miles is an equally valuable component of the band. Of course he is: It's not like he's a second-chair French horn player for Arcade Fire, he's the lead guitarist of a relatively straightforward garage-rock quartet. Aside from being 25% of the band, his work is integral to the group's success: It's difficult imagining what "Grey-Eyed Girls" would sound like without his rippling, jangly leads or "August in My Mind" and "Waterfall" minus his Morricone-in-a-punk-basement fretwork. But regardless of how essential he is to his group, being a guitarist is only one of many forms of musical expression, which is why many sidemen fiddle around with solo projects.
That said, Earth Has Doors feels like the diametric opposite of "fiddling around." The same could be said about his life. After writing these songs hunched over an eight-track four years ago, Miles shelved his solo work in favor of responsibilities familial (he has a child), professional (the Fresh & Onlys are currently gearing up to release a new album, their fourth in the past 36 months), and intellectual (he has a degree in the humanities). The latter is clearly displayed on the EP, which has been presented as a rumination on the deep sense of existentialism that strikes many people approaching their thirties.
But instead of looking inside of himself and realizing his life is insignificant in the bigger picture, Miles faces the lens outward, touching on the initial allure and subsequent emptiness of drugs, the vapidity of consumer culture, and even the metaphysical. He's explained what he was trying to accomplish: "Sonically the mood had to reflect the somberness of moving between the existential chaos of my 20s into this new perspective of living... The mysterious hues of the soundscape reflect a sense of curiosity and possibility in the canyons of sound." In laymen's terms, the EP quickly taps into 1960s and 1970s prog bluster, complete with song titles long enough to require commas.
The 12" is split into two sides, and Side A is the more song-based of the two, with the soundscapes taking a backseat to two dramatic tunes. Its opener softly picks an acoustic guitar and before long, everything is blasted skyward and the song feels spacious and ominous at the same time, like a helicopter hovering over a field. "Temples of Magick" is miles heavier, using tiny bits of squall that squeal in the background. Miles sings in an incredibly wearied voice toward the end of the song, as the mood cascades from eerie to dramatic to back again.
Side B begins with "As the Orchard is With Rain", a floaty, melancholy instrumental, featuring the ambiance of gusty wind, guitar with rapid drop-of-a-dime tempo changes, and a few droning violins circling underneath the sound of thunder (aka a few noisy guitars). The final track "Earth Has Doors, Let Them Open" features vintage synths overwhelmingly high in the mix while Miles let's out a battle cry to open these proverbial doors, before the song breaks down into a agonizingly slow coda that, like much of the EP, feels longer than it actually is.
Really, with an EP so dramatic and high-concept, it's almost a wonder it came out of the Fresh & Onlys camp. That's another thing about solo projects: It's like Miles felt the stakes for this were astronomically high, even if nobody else knew it.
