Penny Blacks

Jason Ogden, the man driving the vehicle known as Penny Blacks has been restless while the 7-piece band chips away at their debut full-length album. To combat the idle hands and overactive songwriting glands, Ogden has recorded a 5-song EP to tide us over until the fall release of the full-length album. Gold Standards is Penny Blacks’ second EP release, and it continues the tradition of capturing the mid-fi, bedroom-torch-song ethos that began when Ogden started posting home recordings on his MySpace several years ago; yet it does something more. The scope of these songs goes well beyond the isolation of a room, an apartment. There is a traveled maturity to songs like “Socorro” and “Chop Yourself…” that suggests a forlorn goodbye to something as well as a confident welcome.