Review: Exnations medicate fear with glowing synths on debut EP, ‘Tiny Sound in the Dark’

I’ve been digging my teeth into Shonda Rhimes’ crack-wit and shrewd book YEAR OF YES the past week. For years, she’s been the reigning drama queen of Thursday nights ⎯⎯ such shows as Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder are tightly-written, excellently-acted and appropriately-groundbreaking. Through stories of her introversion, struggles with motherhood and learning to love herself, Rhimes slits humanity wide open: at the most basic level, the book sheds light on what it means to really live a life worth living. It’s a stunning piece, truly, and I’ve already seen it’s clever anecdotes and discernment impacting my life in small, but decisive, increments. But I digress.

Why do I bring this up? Well, electro-pop trio Exnations‘ debut EP, Tiny Sound in the Dark, reads as a tasty, lush and triumphant pairing to what Rhimes so eloquently teaches in her book. Lead singer Sal Mastrocola (also on guitar and out-of-body synths), Taylor Hughes (drums and more smatterings of vital, blood-giving synths) and John O’Neil (storming on bass) chronicle crippling fear (“Can’t Get Hurt,” the first single, which outlines looming peril), love of the art and its thorny supplications (“Never About the Money” is an unforgiving sonic splash) and the stealthy nature of hope that creeps up like, well, a tiny sound in the dark (“Wore All Black,” a painstaking manifestation of the EP’s core intent, a journey to self-awareness and strength). “Perfect crime / Tip-toe across the line / And in through the window / If I get caught, don’t know if I’ll care or not,” Mastrocola sings, gliding across the most intoxicating romance he’s ever known, a lesson in carpe diem’ing the freaking day.

Double-whammy “Celebration” / “Sign” is a stunner, to be sure, a showing of restraint, and Mastrocola’s voice is at its most fragile, as it collapses into a thousand little fragments that dance and dazzle on the floor. Then, the production scoops up those rough-edged puzzle pieces into a glowing, vibrant and altogether cinematic mosaic that would make for an elegant and romantic stained-glass portrait. There’s something almost spiritual about Tiny Sound in the Dark, as if the listener is instructed to follow the southern Baptist preacher down to the muddy river bank for a ceremony of renewal and rebirth. With charming affection and delicacy, the meager but towering five-song bow is as warm as communion later that blistered and sunny afternoon. Your body is drenched in the cool droplets of the lake, but even now, caked in the sun’s touch and a sense of freedom, your skin is chilly and really alive. Exnations shake the earth on which they tread, barreling across the horizon like a bloodthirsty jungle cat. Their neon aesthetic comes to a head with “Blank White,” all about that treble and bass.

If you blink, you might miss exactly what they’re proclaiming through the glassy luminescence. They seize and squeeze every possible drop of notes, melody and vocal line with passion, and we’d be remiss if we didn’t take away a kind of ripened wisdom about life and love and liberty buried deep within its ’80s-adorned walls. Sometimes, the most important things are best delivered with well-armored compassion and tenderness.

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