How to Tame Lions - EP

Album Review

On this five-song, 18-minute EP, Australian singer/songwriter Megan Washington begins with two of the better tracks from her 2010 album I Believe You Liar, "How to Tame Lions" and "Sunday Best," then adds three more esoteric ones. Washington employs light pop structures, such as the frisky rock arrangement of "Sunday Best," and breathily sings of the illusions and duplicities of emotional relationships in earthy language. (She has no compunction against tossing in the occasional obscenity.) "You'll be my Arthur Miller," she tells her paramour in "How to Tame Lions," "I will be your Marilyn Monroe." "Halloween" has an appropriately spooky tone, while "Teenage Fury" is far calmer than its title might suggest. "Welcome Stranger" would have fit right in on an album called I Believe You Liar, as Washington sings, "You are still pretending you're not telling any lies, and I am still pretending I believe you." You won't learn how to tame lions from listening to this disc, but you will get a good introduction to an appealing, idiosyncratic singer from Down Under.