Giving an honest representation of self in music is a fun exploration of id. But often it becomes a battle of ego, and we’re stuck with Mariah Carey insisting her lovers play her music while they make love or whatever the hell you call it when two filthy rich people have sex in a 46th floor loft full of candles without romance. But Michael Olivares spent that time in his Oakland…well, we don’t want to know what else he was doing but making sides that have lead to this 7-inch. Though focusing in on the quick one-two of the A, let’s first focus on the cover of Scorpions’ “Speedy’s Coming” on the B, because nothing is as honest as admitting to a less than flattering love of a band that hasn’t been hip since a Berlin Wall ballad 20-odd years ago. Olivares’ honest pop rendition is a carryover from the same crackling pop-rock from a bygone era that envelopes the two originals (the EP’s namesake and the sub-minute “Fear of Balance.” Again, there’s a genuine to feel to Face the Facts because as en vogue as it should be in a world of Real Estate and Beach Fossils, there’ still an earnest simplicity that makes this basement made EP just different enough that the freaks and geeks can gravitate toward it and claim it as their secret crush in 10-20 years when they continue to cycle of releasing their own truths from their own basements.
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