“Is this really happening?” SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE sing off their new four track EP, i’m so lucky, released last Friday on Saddle Creek record. It’s a question you could ask about the mind-blowing possibility of a band fitting so many genres (chill wave, hardcore, synth pop, to name a few) in such a compact album of songs. It’s an apt question for the chaotic and beautiful existence that we live in, as well.

And that’s the feeling of the record, that it takes expert ju-jitsu creativity of a band like SPIRIT’s to reflect upon, to navigate this crazy planet we live on. “Like a beast on the streets and you can’t see it / Like a snake in the grass who defies the laws / You couldn’t picture the appetite of a tapeworm, eating all,” is how they put it on the third song of the album, a head-shredding, hardcore amalgam that has as much heavy breathing as music in it.

The Philly band came out with this after a successful 2021 full length and should be on track to release a full length sometime in the near future. But this is enough to satisfy their fans and bring others into the fold. With the political first song, “human debenture,” to the final song, “natural devotion 2,” which sheds the hardcore for something beautiful and romantic, with swapping male and female vocals, as well as some well-placed samples, it is an eleven-minute journey that feels like a two hour long movie with plenty of plot twists.

It is satisfying both for its shortness and its packedness. Many bands wouldn’t be able to show such range in a twelve song album, that they show in four songs. It’s short but replay able. And if you need more SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE, they have quite the back catalog to check out. It seems like they would be an dynamically electric live band, but their recording is the next best thing.

Order i’m so lucky SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE by HERE