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Quick hits: Alcoholic Faith Mission

Denmark’s Alcoholic Faith Mission plays a Beirut/Arcade Fire-style indie-folk that rides the fine line between style and substance. On first listen it seems that the band is all bark and no bite; the moods are solid and the instrumentation is strong, but no song jumps out and demands attention. There are choirs, acoustic guitars, horn sections, et al., but as an overall whole, And the Running With Insanity EP takes a very unassuming stance.

But as more listens follow the initial impression, these songs wormed their way into my head. A few weeks after I got this EP, “Running With Insanity” popped up on a shuffle list. While I was hard-pressed to remember who wrote the song or what it was called, I knew I liked it and could hum along. When I looked down at the title, I decided I liked the EP. Not because it stands out for virtuosic instrumentation or immediate tunes, but for the fact that I really like this EP for an almost inexplicable reason. It’s like enjoying The National. No matter how many times I disliked High Violet, I kept being drawn to it. Now I go to it as comfort music. I have no idea when I started liking that album; it just happened somewhere in there.

So it is for Alcoholic Faith Mission and its And the Running With Insanity EP. I really like it, because it’s a part of my brain now. I can’t explain how or why it got there, but I’m relatively certain this sort of thing will happen to you too if you listen.