Fear and Trembling want to come across as a wolf in sheep's clothing. "Fear Led to the Wolf's Decline" opens with the band's best slowcore impression, lulls you into a Bedhead-like trance with chiming guitars and atmospheric sounds, and then, just when you're getting comfy and expecting some sleepy, reverb-drenched vocals, it kicks you in the teeth with a wall of painfully loud guitars. And then it steals all your credit cards.

Fear and Trembling's whole shtick hangs on creating such stark juxtapositions. Plenty of bands have relied on similar tactics to carve themselves a place within the indie rock canon, but here the shock effect comes off like a B-grade horror flick -- it's just not scary.

The three-song EP achieves moments of real beauty, but when they go for the whole heavy-handed, death-and-destruction thing, they cheapen the overall aesthetic. Pitting two extremes against one another will certainly make people notice your music, albeit sometimes only for as long as it takes to turn down the volume, but the band also needs to explore the complexities and subtleties of their work, the better to win over audiences for the duration. Here's hoping they truly master the arts of disguise and surprise.