Atwood Magazine helped introduce The Eeries to the world in September with our review of the band’s single, “Cool Kid.” Last month, the LA-based alt/grunge rockers shared a little more musical perspective with the release of their 5-song eponymous EP via Interscope Records. If you’re not yet familiar with The Eeries’ style, imagine a world in which the grunge, alternative and punk music movements of the early 1990s were still alive and thriving – where individual songs had cultural, socio-political purpose, and rock bands made heavy music fueled by fire and fury.

Listen: “Cool Kid” – The Eeries

The Eeries live in this world. The EP’s three new songs (in addition to lead single “Cool Kid” and its b-side “Love You To Pieces”) find the band rounding out their alternative sound with a musical and lyrical diversity that speak to the band’s greater talents: cohesiveness. Despite the internal chaos expressed in each song, The Eeries EP is a wholesome, singular unit. Starting with the infectious high energy of “Girlfriend,” the band takes us through a nostalgia-filled alternative tour-de-musique: Where “Cool Kid” offers the kind of classic/hard rock that makes you want to sing until your lungs explode, “Love You To Pieces” is a heavier head-banger that serves a smooth transition to the Oasis-like ballad, “Shine On.” The album ends in full punk glory, with the pop-friendly angst-riddled “Overrated” finding frontman Isaiah Silva singing his lungs out:

Shoot, shoot shoot the radio
It’s overrated and so dangerous
Shoot, shoot shoot the radio
We’re overrated ’cause they play us

Listen: “Overrated” – The Eeries

It’s worth mentioning the lines of the second verse that follow this closing song’s first chorus:

And soccer moms and dads who go to church
And protest fags are secretly the most fucked up on drugs
And critics don’t know who to praise or who to hate
‘Cause every song just sounds the same, we’re all to blame

The American cultural and music scenes have pined for an anti-mainstream leader since the death of Kurt Cobain. While the teens and young twenty-somethings of the early 90s have since grown up, had kids, purchased CR-Vs and moved on with their lives, the Millennials who came into maturity and societal awareness over the past decade are just starting to realize the misgivings of their generation and prior generations. Socioeconomic diversity has become a fancy word for the rich and the poor – the gray area in-between is smaller than ever. There is racial segregation, corruption in media, politics, and big business, a weighty fiscal debt, and a shrinking ozone layer. Facebook and Twitter are full of “viral” postings from Buzzfeed – and Time? Yet how can something be “viral” if there’s a new sensation emerging every 24 – nay, 12 hours? Consumption runs rampant. The world is on, at hyper-speed.

Music has always been, and will continue to be a respite from the madness. Nirvana spoke for their generation, and if they play their cards right, The Eeries could end up being a rising voice for the 2010s. There’s a lot to shout about, and the Eeries do so ruthlessly – without complaining or whining. There’s no smoke and mirrors with this band: They say what they want to say, point blank. Fuck the nay-sayers, and to hell with the downers. That’s that.

Shut off your lowercase-‘i’ internet. Close those Google Chrome tabs. Go listen to The Eeries.

For fans of: Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, The Pixies, Oasis, Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer