Credit it to the fact that we're approaching the end of the decade that emo and indie pop are apparently now almost completely indistinguishable. Three years ago I'd have been quite happy to drop Ellington into the emo basket, but now the genres seem to have merged so completely that I'm no longer sure where this actually belongs. All of what I consider to be the essential emo ingredients are here; songs by boys about how girls don't understand them, a poetic lyrical style, skinny jeans, and simple yet melodic song structures. On the other hand, there are no punk rock guitars here, and there's nary a piercing to be seen on the faces on any of the lead musicians involved.

Whether this is indie pop or emo doesn't matter in the long run though; it's whether the music is fun to listen to and well written that's important. And the first track, Between Faith and the City Lights certainly gets the band off to a good start in answering that question. The lyrics are poetic and evocative, without getting bogged down in the sometimes excessive verbality of bands like Augie March, or the sometimes excessive sentimentality of bands like Art of Fighting. More to the point, it's a fine pop song by any measure, with a quick pace, catchy melody, and some subtle guitar harmonies buried at just the right level under the fizzy rhythm guitar.

The problem with this EP becomes evident in the first five seconds of the next track though, which runs at precisely the same tempo and features more or less the same beat and chord progression as the prior track. There's something to be said for doing one thing and doing it well, but Ellington take it to ridiculous extremes throughout the rest of the disc, basically serving up five inferior copies of the first song, while at the same time overdoing the gaudy sentimentality and high school romanticism that they managed to avoid on the first track.

There are a couple of glimmers of light; the fingerpicked acoustic guitar that opens In A Lonely Place at first gives the impression that the track is going to offer a bit of variety in the form of a ballad, before the song is overtaken by the same lyrical inanity that blights the rest of the EP. Of course, you probably won't make it all the way down to track five to hear it, having long ago hit the "rewind track" button to skip back to the title track.

The fact that Ellington have managed to come up with one good track indicates that they have great potential if they can keep things up and diversify their offerings, but this EP indicates that they don't quite have the songwriting maturity yet to come up with a decent full-length offering. All of the ingredients for a fine indie pop (or emo) record are here though, and if the band can come up with a slightly more varied offering next time around, they have a good chance of producing an excellent record.