Pitchfork

Some of the most influential music critics have never typed a review. The songs a band chooses to cover can play a crucial role in establishing the canon, whether their selections are inspired or just unfortunate. Get Him Eat Him's Matt LeMay has long been one of the Pitchfork staff's most passionate champions of the Capstan Shafts, the lo-fi solo project of Vermont resident Dean Wells. Perhaps even more than a positive review, the exuberant, unabashedly polished indie rock of LeMay's own band gives him the ideal vehicle to help Dean Wells' sharp hooks and witty lyrics find the bigger audience they deserve.

As recorded on the Capstan Shafts' The Megafauna Undermined, the rickety chords and thin vocals of "More Lovely Than Likely" could make this otherwise-jaunty pop song an acquired taste. On the B-side of new tour-only 7" "There's a Guy", Get Him Eat Him translate the song for a higher-fidelity world. LeMay's clear, open vocals and an anthemic arrangement guide the scraggly, homemade original toward the rich guitar-pop of bands like the New Pornographers, with a hard-charging chorus you might hear from the reunited Dinosaur Jr. As with Dino bassist Lou Barlow's best 1990s four-tracks, only the production was amateurish all along.

[from the "There's a Guy" 7"; due in July via Catbird Records]