Eli “grape milk” Warren continues to be his own thing in terms of his music. SPIDER, his most recent EP, is definitely showing Eli’s weirder side (especially with its song titles… who calls a song “BLOWZSNEEZER” exactly?). Regardless, it has a lot of charm and character to it worth talking about.

SPIDER is kind of the sister project to his album SWAN, taking a more dark and eerie tone in a few songs while also just having a fun energy to it. It takes itself less seriously for the most part except for the very beginning and end.

The album begins with “egodeath,” a short 2-minute intro track that reflects Eli’s own self doubt with his music. It is a sadder start to the project but it hits very hard and has that relatability factor that a lot of Eli’s music captures.

We then get into a less serious side of the album, with the next song “bone brittle.” Personally this is one of Eli’s few misses. This song feels lacking in some sense. I may just not get it, but this just seems like something made in an hour as a joke and then was released. In a lot of instances that is okay, but SPIDER appears to have a minimal level of seriousness that this song somehow still breaks.

Then we get to the previously mentioned BLOWZSNEEZER. This song is pretty simple in terms of Eli’s style, but it definitely works and the only real downside is that it feels a little too long in the beginning. Once you are in though, it is a wild ride.

The final song on the EP is potentially one of Eli’s best works, “Red Theme.” This song accomplishes everything Eli aims to go for and more, with a slightly existential tone to it yet still being a banger. If there are no other takeaways from this EP, I still recommend fully listening to Red Theme. It genuinely saves the album.

My final review of this project is a 7.9. Unfortunately it is turned down a lot because it came right after SWAN and was thus a little disappointing, but songs like Red Theme and egodeath make up for it wholeheartedly. See you in the next review!