Kudos to Seattle’s Math and Physics Club for continuing to put out EPs that share no songs with their album, yet are just as good. Their third EP Baby I’m Yours stands strongly with the first two, and the group’s self-titled debut album, as an example of pop songwriting that presses all the right buttons, in terms of melody, wit and emotion. Baby I’m Yours has four charming songs – a little romantic, a little melancholy – that flow style-wise naturally from their outstanding debut LP. There’s a touch of the Smiths to “Nothing Really Happened”’s vocals and melody, but that’s far from a bad thing. The title track is catchy and sweet, a portrait of love’s power over common sense. It’s as attractive as a single should be, though truthfully any of these 4 songs could be considered an A side in spirit. My favorite, the hit single in my mind, is “Do You Keep a Diary”. That’s also the one that’s most a “departure” for the band, due to its New Order-ish synth and drum machine base. I love that texture to it, but even better is the gorgeous melody itself. And the lyrics demonstrate one last time, as if we needed a reminder, that one sad little love song can be as complicated as the human heart.   --Erasing Clouds

 

As a fella, I suppose I should be somewhat ashamed to admit I love shoes. Not that I’ve gone all Imelda Marcos and have a roomful of shoes to wade through every morning, but I am a sucker for a good pair a colorful soccer shoes or sporty sneedles. What do shoes have to do with Math & Physics Club? Well, it is the first you notice if you pick up their new EP, Baby I’m Yours, two pairs of excellent shoes on legs covered with stylish jeans crossing some city street. Luckily, the shoes aren’t the only thing impressive about the EP. Math & Physics Club continue to produce some of the finest melancholy modern rock on this (or any) continent. Baby I’m Yours features four new songs for your listening pleasure, and Math & Physics Club pull no punches, so if you loved their self-titled debut, you’re bound to get all fuzzy about the new EP. That being said, Math & Physics Club do try a few new things; namely, they introduce a little more variety in the rhythm section. The title track lacks the almost signature MAPC brushed drums, which are traded in for real drumsticks to drive the gentle, post-Smiths melody, and the song is pop rock at its finest. The bigger change might be the electro-pop turn taken by the band on “Do You Keep a Diary.” The song takes the Belle & Sebastian comparison in a new direction, almost sounding like a hybrid between the aforementioned band and the Pet Shop Boys. It works remarkably well for a band built on a foundation of simple arrangements, coming across like a song from a future Math & Physics Club that fell backwards through time to us. Meanwhile, “In This Together” and “Nothing Really Happened” fill in between and bring us the Math & Physics club we know and love. “Nothing Really Happened” is especially gorgeous reworking of what is supposedly one of the first songs written by the band. The mixture of the Marr/Morrissey melody and the gentle violin are like a warm fall evening by the sound. So, if you’re in need of something to keep your attention as you wait for a new Math & Physics Club album, Baby I’m Yours is excellent gift from the band just in time for the holidays. It shows the band is the master of its domain, crafting soft and beautiful pop songs with the best of them.   --Three Imaginary Girls

 

Seattle's Math and Physics Club continue their romance with Sarah Records-era indie pop and, well, romance itself on the Baby I'm Yours EP, released on Matinee in 2007. This little disc provides a sneak peek of the band's second full-length, and from the sound of things it seems like they're continuing in the vein of their self-titled 2006 long-player. This is easy-going twee pop at its least angsty and most in love; Charles Bert's vocals are still delightfully, if not eerily, smooth and Morrissey-like, and the songs themselves still draw from the heart-felt simplicity of bands like the Field Mice and the Orchids. The main event here is the EP's title track, an easy-breezy pop song that finds the band returning to the tried-and-true pop territory reminiscent of singles from past releases, particularly "April Showers," "Darling, Please Come Home," and "Movie Ending Romance." There are a couple small surprises to be found on this disc, though; "In This Together" has a pleasant Free Design feel, and "Do You Keep a Diary" dips into electro-pop territory. It's these little deviations from the norm that make Baby I'm Yours a worthwhile addition to any Math and Physics Club fan's collection.   --All Music Guide

 

Somehow I've been lucky enough to review three Math and Physics Club (hereafter referred to as MAPC) EPs and never the band's full-length. EPs are wonderful things, though, charming you with their immediacy and never overstaying their welcome, and I'm left with the impression that this is a classic EP band, offering up three-minute pop songs with a gorgeous sheen and then leaving you to mull over how good it's been. This Seattle band offers four more new songs that put a shiny gleam on an otherwise gloomy city. MAPC has always sounded like a British indie-pop band to me and never like an American band trying to sound British. Classic Smiths and Cure influences abound, coupled with the beauty and charming serenity of bands like Belle & Sebastian. In short, it's a lovely sound, pure and simple. The title track kicks off this too-short EP with about as upbeat and rocking as MAPC gets. The more upbeat rhythms and the catchy vocals give the song a classic British pop feel, and the track is instantly vaulted into my favorite song by the band. “Nothing Really Happened” is the very first MAPC ever recorded, but this new version includes perfect production and some lovely violin to provide a nice counterpart to the vocals. I'm reminded of the beauty the Smiths were able to convey when they wished. There's a beautiful echo to the guitar in the more melancholy “In This Together,” and “Do You Keep a Diary?” has an almost electronic beat, giving the song a retro pop feel. I'm not sure I want a full-length from MAPC (there is one, reviewed on DOA), because I'm taken with the short brilliance of these wonderful EPs. MAPC gives me short and beautiful pop songs, created with pure pop bliss, lovely guitars, melancholy vocals, and charming moments of strings. Too much of a good thing may overwhelm my senses. This is the perfect bit of pop sunshine to get me through a dreary winter weekend day.   --Delusions of Adequacy

 

Funny enough Baby I'm Yours from the new EP of the same name by Math and Physics Club is not even the strongest song here and could easily be supplanted by any of the remaining three. It's short, jangly and catchy and for anyone else it could be a minor classic. However delve deeper into the EP and you will find tracks that displace the title track with ease. Are missing The Smiths? Then try Nothing Really Happened which sounds like it was recorded in the shadows of Strangeways. This is a re-recording of a demo sent to Matinée in 2004. It's no wonder the label signed the band. The band sound less like The Smiths these days and In This Together demonstrates this perfectly. Trumpets, violins, hand claps and a few ba ba bas takes care of that. If I ever used the word twee to describe indie pop this would be the nearest I would come. The best waits until last with Do You Keep A Diary which is driven by the keyboard heading towards the dance floor. With this EP the bar is raised just that higher.   --Indie-mp3.co.uk

 

The opening and title track to this short player, ‘Baby I’m Yours’, ambles by in cutie, anorak blandness, with a passing nod to the Smiths, and perfunctory jangle. It is the weakest number on the EP but luckily the rest of the disc is as twee as a Pastels wet dream – and I mean that in a good way. The second song picks up again on the Smiths thing, both in vocals and melody, and is as catchy, fragile, melodic and innocent as all pop music should be. The highlight, though, comes with track three, ‘In This Together’, which is all sweeping violins, jangling guitars, feyness, ba ba ba ba’s and “rainy days and Mondays”. These are songs which could have quite easily have come off of NME’s C86 and sound more Bellshill than Seattle. The lack of testosterone and excitement probably mean this isn’t for most, but if you carry a satchel, sport a pair of Clark’s shoes, or have a fondness for duffle coats, this may well be for you.   --Is This Music?

 

The latest in a line of artists to share Seattle’s indie-pop pedigree; a band name that suggests a group of charming introverts; and a style that infers what The Smiths would have sounded like with a sunny side—perhaps musically analogous to Belle & Sebastian. While these elements might seem all too familiar, chances are you’ve not heard the likes of Math and Physics Club before. On what is ultimately a very engaging EP, the band treats listeners to their brand of sensible mid-tempo guitar rock that places emphasis on winning vocals and well-crafted melodies. Only twelve minutes and four tracks in duration, there is enough richness in each song to make the disc seem a fuller affair, and Baby I’m Yours presents a case that the time is ripe for Math and Physics Club to earn some notice. While each track is solid in structure and delivery, the album’s bookends are most captivating; the title-bearing opener has a dreamy little shuffle to it while closing track “Do You Keep a Diary” casts some ambient sound into the mix and possesses an infectious melody that would have made the track a hit at the heights of the ‘60s pop/rock revolution.   --Pop Matters

 

Math and Physics Club's self-titled debut remains one of my favorite albums of 2006, a pristine collection of Belle & Sebastian twee distilled down to four chords and the (precious, broken-hearted) truth. But just as that album was a leap forward from their early EPs, the group's latest - the just-released Baby I'm Yours EP - finds them shifting directions, adding a little more production to their winsome, tuneful pop. The title track replaces the band's trademark acoustic guitars with electric ones, a move I won't call an improvement, exactly, but one that certainly doesn't disappoint. Later, "Nothing Really Happened" - the best track on the disc, and apparently one of the band's earliest songs - narrates the all-too-familiar futility of another wasted night out, while "Do You Keep a Diary" dabbles in unexpected electronic elements.   --Rawkblog

 

This is the latest EP from Seattle's Math And Physics Club, a band who have many more Anglo influences than ones from their home town. The singer has a lovely laid back way of singing, and the title track is a delightfully crafted little indie pop song. By the time you get to Nothing Really Happened you realise how crisp and tightly defined their songs are, they have a well rounded tunefulness like the Lucksmiths. In This Together is probably the best tune; some sighing strings feature, there is a gentle tune and some fantastic ba-ba-bas. Do You Keep A Diary is a lovely moment which you'll want to take home with you, as you should this gorgeous EP.   --Russell’s Reviews

 

If you're a good, old-fashioned girl, or dating one, that single goodnight kiss at the end of date can be anything from an uninspired formality to a hint at great things on the horizon. Math and Physics Club's sophomore EP's certainly a long kiss goodnight that sends you to bed with your head in the clouds. With a neat-and-trim four-song track listing, the Seattle band doesn't have any wiggle room on Baby I'm Yours, but it doesn't need it. Cutting across a wide slice of pop, Math and Physics Club's EP does what every great goodnight kiss does. It doesn't just make you want more, but sets your mind racing about all the possibilities in your future. The title track opens the album, with a zippy chunk of jangle-pop that bears more than a small resemblance to The Smiths, with sparkly guitar melodies punctuated by drum work that's surprisingly adept and agile. "Nothing Really Happened" relaxes a little bit, sinking into a folk-jangle hybrid that's a twee backdrop for Charles Bert's librarian-esque sighs that's more of a reminder of the band's full-length, and "In this Together" breaks out the brushes for the drum kit as the band sweetly swoops through an indie-pop/orchestral pop hybrid that's just a finger's width from becoming too precious to take seriously. "Do You Keep a Diary" closes the EP with a wonderful surprise, as the band drops into synth-pop mode, as a heavy bass line and electropop drums go nuts as guitars come in to pull the song out of the synth-pop formula and remind us of Math and Physics Club's guitar-pop origins. Only the strapping rhythms in the opening track and the electro moments of the closer should come as a surprise to anyone who's even tangentially familiar with the Seattle band's output, but it's enough to make you start to wonder. What other tricks does the band have in store for us? What else will ignite our passions? Just like after closing the door behind you after a turn-you-to-putty goodnight kiss, we'll just have to revel in the moment and dream about what's yet to come.   --Aversion.com