Ee-Uh!

Blazing through six songs in nine minutes, Numbers return with Ee-Uh!, an EP split evenly between three new studio recordings and live versions of some of their best-known songs. "Insomnia" captures the essence of the band's simple, angular sound with its sputtering, stuttering beats and beeps, while "At the Mall" features silly, surreal lyrics ("you're so tall/do you play basketball?") atop outbursts of clanging and screeching synths and guitars. The title track is the best of the new songs, an atonal study in rhythm and tension that is both more fleshed out and tighter than the other tracks here. The live tracks reveal Numbers' more crazed side, particularly on "Palo Alto," which sounds more deranged here with a thick blanket of static and noise than it originally did on the split single with Erase Errata on which it originally appeared; "Information" gains an almost Servotron-like cast in a live setting, and "We Like Having These Things," which is the closest thing to a manifesto that the band has written so far, sounds all the more anthemic. While it's not as complete a look at the band as Numbers Life — and of course, it's not meant to be — Ee-Uh! is still a welcome stop-gap release until Numbers comes out with another album.