EP REVIEW: Mavericks – Television Supervision

Orlando pop-punkers TELEVISION SUPERVISION have just put out their latest EP, Mavericks. The four-piece have been garnering praise from major alternative outlets like Kerrang! and Alternative Press for their fusion of different styles and genres to create something infectious, and this EP was produced by Andy Karpovck (A DAY TO REMEMBER, MAGNOLIA PARK), so with all these factors it’s a little disappointing that the record falls a touch flat.

It’s one thing to fuse different genres and experiment with sound to make something incredible, but it’s another thing when it turns into a noisy mess. Cloud 9 is used as the opening track and it just causes confusion as we wonder what the hell we’ve gotten ourselves into. There are funky noises, but then there are strumming guitars, but then there’s weird buzzing and distorted noise that has a strange quality. It might end up being divisive amongst listeners where some will either love or hate it, but even without the weird sound effects it’s a basic track. Fortunately, the record does pick up with Ex Games that’s more punk-based and has elements of 90s nostalgia that make it a fun listen.

Frustratingly however, The Truth brings back those weird sound effects that creates a song that would have been heard Radio Disney as some weird Metro Station knock-off. But then the EP gets better again with Racing To You, a fun pop-rock/pop-punk track that slightly makes up for the trainwreck side of the EP. Yet even then, despite being the best song on the EP, it doesn’t stand out much in any way in comparison to other songs in the modern rock scene.

To sum this record up, its opening song is a mess but then the band pick things up with the second track, and then they do more or less the same thing for tracks three and four. It’s strange, you can tell that this genre of music works for TELEVISION SUPERVISION and they’re familiar with it, yet it doesn’t feel original as they seem to rely on the nostalgia and familiarity of the style they use. Maybe it would’ve been better without the weird sound effects, but even then, the EP would probably still fail to stand on its own.

Rating: 6/10

Mavericks is out now via self-release.

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