There’s something particularly intoxicating about people who seem to just exhale songs.

Prolific in his own very special way, songwriter Pierce Kingan doesn’t like to keep his fans waiting. The casually-enigmatic Vancouver acolyte seems intent on usurping both the King Gizzards and Guided by Voices of this world in output, pumping out material at a dizzying tempo. Serious Inquiries Only, his quasi-solo project’s 20th EP continues Kingan’s enviable streak of cranking out songs that feel as effortless as they are entrancing.

The band keeps things breezy on this four-cut EP with songs that shuffle in with a coy smile and stumble out just as amiably, plaiting into a swooning mix of a kind of fractured Deerhunter-esque doo-wop and the slackest surfiest aspects of Pavement. 

Still, behind the earworm beachy vibes, a snotty brashness lurks. Midway through the title track, a guitar rears its distorted head to remind you that there’s only so much first gear a person can take, and the whimpering mantra plea of “miss being loved” is just as quickly turned on its head with “love being missed.” The cheeky sax that caps off “Lover’s Lane” is like a knowing wink from Kingan, telling you to not despair, and that a 21st batch of comely goodness is being cooked up as you listen.

— Support the Pierce Kingans and buy their album on Bandcamp —