Album Review: 5EPs by Dirty Projectors

A band eager to make a splash with a "major musical statement" has several options they can pursue. Among them, they can make a big album with plenty of fresh material, or they can bombard fans with a bunch of smaller releases in a relatively short period of time. Dirty Projectors have chosen to do both; the group issued a series of five EPs in the second half of 2020 (Windows Open, Flight Tower, Earth Crisis, Super João, and Ring Road), and the album 5EPS collects them into one grand-scale, 20-song package.

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While Dirty Projectors have always essentially been the Dave Longstreth show, it's no secret that it was the project's female members who catapulted them to acclaim. The band's artistic peaks, 2009's Bitte Orca and 2012's Swing Lo Magellan, were in no small part due to bassist/vocalist Angel Deradoorian and guitarist/vocalist Amber Coffman. Without either of their contributions, Longstreth's latest records have felt somewhat empty, despite being more personal than ever. 5EPs, the 20-song collection that combines the band's 2020 releases, does something to correct this imbalance. Featuring vocals and instrumentation from three new members — Maia Friedman, Felicia Douglass and Kristin Slipp — this new music feels warm and grounded again..

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