I like that Gollylagging hides their power level a bit during the first half, of the first song, off their first 2021 EP, Ain't That Just The Way! The Boston band is very capable of projecting their sound and cranking up the volume, but "Capsizing" begins with a solitary, jangling guitar stroke that sways indecisively like it's not sure it has the gumption to say what it intends to- but then someone steps on a distortion pedal, the vocals jump from a deliberate whisper to a shirt-ripping, throaty howl, and Gollylagging have blasting over 9,000 volts of pure emo energy directly into you skull cavity. The slow start to the record makes this fast wind-up feel all the more impeccable- and they never really let up the rest of the record either (with the notable exception of the acoustic number, "Dealing Cards")- not even to pluck up out and spruce up one of the several earwormy melodies that float through the empathetic ferment. Mostly, because they don't have to. Gollylagging are one of those groups that can pin the odometer to the floor like they were arm wrestling with it- like they're Macho Man Randy Savage and their challenger was Bill Nye- and still, they come off as catchy as they come. The band can, and does, tear through these songs like the frantic abandon of Texas is the Reason on their '95 EP, but with the aforementioned fineness of champion bull rider, never losing their grip on the essential, live wire groove as the core of each track, and wrangling them into an orderly, if not tame, efficacious whip and jog. Ain't That Just The Way! is raw and fractious, but it shows a band capable of turning their internal combustion into a viable fuel for introspective enactments of punk prowess. Lollygagging, they are not.
