Oh how hipsters are going to love making fun of the new EP by Elvis Perkins In Dearland. I deduced this about a third of the way through the opening track. This thing will be mocked, but as easy as it is to make fun of, I think it’s much more difficult to actively listen to this record and consciously abhor it.

See one thing must be made clear here. It’s pretty much impossible to look cool dancing and being gloomy at the same time, and this is not only something that’s completely lost on Perkins, it’s this working aesthetic that propels every single second on Doomsday. Basically, celebrating life can only be experienced in its purest form if it’s the toast of the hour with death a stone’s throw away, and that contradiction lends itself to some fairly awkward moments. That however, is precisely the exact strength of Doomsday and there will be plenty of people too busy staring at the sun to get this music.

If you ask me, the fact Perkins called this EP Doomsday and his choice to lead out the album with the horn-blasting title track is no coincidence. It’s really impossible to listen to this brilliant opener and not be reminded of XTC’s Poor Skeleton Steps Out cheesy but memorable track found on their Oranges And Lemons album. Yeah Doomsday is over the top, and I can almost hear critics already joyously pounding the keys on their pretty Macbooks en route to giving this record a euphoric thumbs down rating (or whatever clichéd analogical rating image is the in-thing these days among writers who depend on such shorthand expressions to overcome the fact they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about) but personally, I believe the bombastic is only something to criticize if it emerges from a bombastic ego.

If everything crafted comes from a secular place that doesn’t involve the sound of the music matching an inflated sense of self-perception, then it’s not something to condemn, it’s something to grab a beer and commend. There is absolutely no reason we can’t all embrace our inner stupid drunk, and the title track gives us the soundtrack to this.

None of the other tracks reach the over the moon heights attained on the aforementioned song, but surprisingly enough, the other highlights come in the form of the only two slower-paced offerings on Doomsday. Stay Zombie Stay starts out as a downtrodden backwoods hobble that’s almost slyly MIA until the last half of the song goes totally bat shit with searing guitars that came off like something J Mascis might put forth if he was on some really bad acid and had access to his Fender. It pushes itself into an almost anthemic death-march, a completely un-ironic and powerful moment that made me think of that ol Joker quote about dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight. I never really understood that phrase, I always just thought it was some psycho shit that could only sound cool coming out of Jack Nicholson’s mouth, but after hearing Stay Zombie Stay, it resonated with me. The point here is: a sinister waltz is still a waltz my friends.

The other truly striking track would be the closer Slow Doomsday. I really don’t want to give the impression it’s a book-end album with one strong track in the middle (all of the songs are interesting in their own way, just not standouts in the true sense of the term like these ones I’m mentioning) but there is no denying the entry and exit wounds are the ones most people will remember years down the road, even if the rest of Doomsday is forgotten, and not just because of their inherent contrast in style/mood either. Not sure if alcohol analogies mean anything to most of you reading this, but if this isn’t the quintessential nightcap tune, I’m not sure there is such a thing. Sure the familiar style is there with the prominent drum beat, lovelorn voice, stabbing piano, but there’s something different at work here.

Yeah life might just be a dream until death reaches out to us, but Slow Doomsday shows us there’s no reason we can’t sway there in pace with each other, or at least try to until our stumbling veers us closer to solo permanence. Sure we may always be going at it alone, but as any of you fellow drunks out there know, many times it’s the group-walk home from the pub that provides the night’s most memorable moments.

In a lot of ways, when I think of Doomsday EP, I’m reminded of Primal Scream’s Riot City Blues record. Both lent themselves to bitch-slaps at the hands of pretentious dirtbags across the world, and both acts probably knew this would be a fairly universal reaction (OK, probably Bobby thought he’d get a Nobel Prize for it or something, but he thinks that before every Primal Scream studio album). The fact is, both of these are goddamn great rock’n'roll records, and it’s really impossible to prove me otherwise actually, since the unapologetically sincere and simplistic approach contained on these cannot be denied, only impugned, and you know, something may be pretty awful and stupid, but if you can’t tell me why it’s awful and stupid, it transcends those labels and then it’s just writing in a bathroom stall.

I remember reading Pitchfork’s review on Riot City Blues and they said something along the lines of it sounding like a bunch of frat boys who discovered the blues for the first time. My response to that was, “So what?” I can’t wait to hear what I’ll get to say “So what?” to for Doomsday.