(I promised a long time ago I’d review this EP, but it never happened because I got caught up in moving. I’ve finally decided to buckle down, move to the far wall of my apartment, and hijack my Russian neighbor’s WiFi connection. The following review is dedicated to Mr. Shokhirev.)

  1. Preston the Penguin 2. To Jane Gallagher 3. Crestfallen 4. The Battle of Agincourt 5. Historiography 6. Hindsight 7. The Book of Love One gets the feeling that the almost exclusively minimalist approach to instrumentation used on this EP might seem out of place elsewhere—but throughout the course of its seven appetizing tracks, all but one of which ring in under four minutes, minimalism proves to be an approach that could not have been implemented more perfectly. Yes, even when the backing band kicks in with a solo or a second layer of noise, what the listener hears is more (or less?) than noise—this is the type of well-oiled, deftly composed power pop with which literary, geeky kids fell in love in the glory days of groups like Weezer. Without making the now obligatory snide remarks about the career arc of Weezer, I think it’s safe to say that many miss the honesty and angry innocence of the early days of that Weezer sound. Well, allow me to be the first reviewer to say that Steve Goldberg is not the solution to your Weezer craving. Did you think I was about to say that Steve Goldberg takes me back to those days? In truth, he does. But as in most cases, there’s a lot more to it than that, and I would be lax to send you off expecting Weezer. There are a few things I can guarantee you will take away from this album—and all of them are one hundred percent original Steve Goldberg. With the first track, Preston the Penguin, Goldberg manages to kick off the record with a rollicking, and decidedly whimsical, power-pop anthem. This is also the first track where it occurred to me that Steve Goldberg has an above-average singing voice. As soon as I got over the twinge of jealousy that occurs every time I hear someone sing better than me, I listened again and again to Steve hitting the same notes that I can hit—but without a hint of strain. These reeds are clearly unbeatable—or if there is any vocal obstacle Goldberg does not feel comfortable scaling, he steers well clear of it here, and leaves with his listener an impression of being perhaps the world’s most relaxed performer in his vocal range. In To Jane Gallagher, the singer’s thinly guised search for his perfect girl (whom we suspect he already knows?), the lyrics are winning: “I need a girl / who reads between the lines / of Shakespeare and Joyce / she’s read Catcher no less than five times.” Possibly the least self-conscious love song ever written, the specificity of the requests is what makes this song touching, in the sense that it is surely obvious to anyone who knows the classic Salinger character “Jane Gallagher” that the lyrics are about her. A note to Troy, of “Mixtape of Love” infamy: next time, just play her this song. “So if you think you’ve seen her / could you tell me where to find her? / if you’ve heard a little rumor / just whisper and I’ll go.” Who wouldn’t love to have those words sung about them? Oh yeah, and the music’s great too. Somewhat deceptively, the upbeat foot-tapper known as Crestfallen is one of the more uplifting songs on this EP. It also happens to be one of my personal favorites. And is that an Elvis Costello reference I hear? Between its very medievally oriented lyrics, and its status as the longest track on How I Remember Them, The Battle of Agincourt could well be called the album’s “epic,” based, as many listeners will recall, upon the 1415 battle fought between the English and the French. Upon first listen, I didn’t care for this song—it seemed clunky (like the armor in which the song’s character is clad, perhaps?) when set against the other songs, and didn’t try hard enough to be clever or literary. Upon listening again, however, I realized that my reasons for disliking the song doubled as reasons to enjoy it. Is “clunky” just another word for “honest?” Historiography is another favorite track that I will listen to repeatedly for its uniquely sung chorus and time signature. It also happens to include this EP’s namesake phrase. “Looking back through my fisheye lens / everyone is just how I remember them / I’ll edit out all the nasty bits / and give you this: a revisionist history of me.” Beginning with what is certainly the most dramatically building intro of all the songs, Hindsight is for the most part a sleepy, sweet little tune that may have been unremarkable were it not for the wise decision Goldberg makes at several points in the song to shift from the initially deeper vocals into his trademark soaring, reedy performance—the perfect accompaniment to certain parts of this song where the guitar comes out front and asks for more vocals. This song makes me want to lock Steve in a tower with a guitar and some blank sheets of music, just to make absolutely certain that he will never stop writing music. It also wouldn’t hurt if he could spin straw into gold, but we don’t have to talk about that right now. We’ve reached the last track: an inspired cover of The Magnetic Fields’ Book of Love. Incidentally, the first Steve Goldberg song I ever heard was also a cover—the fact alone that it was a cover of King of Carrot Flowers was enough to make me check it out, and once I heard it I knew I was in the presence of talent. But I digress. In Steve’s choice of a closing track for his EP, he is consistently tasteful and true to his roots—it’s hard to say where I’ve heard this song performed better. Why did I feel the need to review this EP on a track-by-track basis? Only some of it has to do with guilt over not having contributed to this site in too long. No, I truly believe that each of these smashingly original tunes is worthy of your time and attention, and will even go so far as to provide you with a link to Steve Goldberg’s website, where Mr. Goldberg has seen fit to provide you with three songs from the How I Remember Them EP, and an additional five cover tracks, for only the small toll of your time. Buy this album, reader, if only so that you can brandish it two years down the road and say, “I knew him before he hit it big.” 9/10