Five Star Theo

Higher Step's band, fivestartheory, delivers with caffeinated beats and infectious rhythms. Its EP, your life is passing by, starts out strong with "caller i.d.," a song fitted perfectly for the recent emo trend. It's a feel-good track, fast-paced with imaginative lyrics -- perfect driving music.\nThis energetic trend flows into the next song, "nashville." The lyrics here are not nearly as good as in the previous song, but it still packs power. From there the CD mellows out. The next song, "february nine," is a soft little ballad. Oddly, "february nine" seems to have the album's best sound, despite misrepresenting the overall style of the group.\nThe EP continues out with the same quick tempo it came in on, with all the songs after "february nine" building up faster and faster. The next track, "hang up," is mild, clearly harder than the previous but without the intensity of the first two tracks. Then the pedal is pressed to the floorboard again to finish out the album with the tracks "if only" and "i was waiting for that."\nThis is the kind of formula you try to use when you make your girlfriend/boyfriend/pet monkey a mix tape. Start out with the attention-getter but follow up with something stronger to keep the attention. Then you have to calm it down so you don't fry the old eardrums. But you can't do that for long, or people will lose interest, so you kick it back up to finish it out. It's a successful technique, and fivestartheory uses it fairly well.\nIt's especially easy for the EP to hold your attention once it gets it because the album is only a half an hour long. That is the only problem with the album -- it has too abrupt of an ending. It would be far stronger if it mellowed back out, like when you're listening to Zeppelin, and you have to go -- you slowly fade the music out into silence. This EP needs that kind of dimension to better showcase the band's depth. Fivestartheory has more than just power pop -- it just doesn't seem to use it.