According to the Touchtones, their new EP Girl Crush is intended to take listeners through the arc of a breakup, from the first feelings of doubt through anger and denial to eventual acceptance. The concept-album approach is compelling in theory, but in practice, the EP often feels more like a collection of individual songs than a cohesive narrative.

The opening track, Everybody Wants to Rule the World, aims for a big, epic sound, but it feels just slightly too slow to match the energy of the original. By the second track, Some Nights, the EP begins to falter. The track comes across as thin, overly treble-heavy, and ultimately underwhelming. Soloist Gracie Gallen nearly rescues Before He Cheats, but the performance can't fully elevate the song. So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings almost works, with a catchy groove and playful energy, until the backing vocals clearly sound like they're singing "show me the banana", undercutting the song's charm.

Album-closer The Feeling has the most potential of all five tracks, thanks to Srishti Khetan's bright solo and a lilting arrangement from Gracie Gallen. This song truly moves gracefully and melodically allowing this otherwise uneven EP to end on a hopeful, uplifting note. While Girl Crush has moments of promise, the EP ultimately struggles to hold together as a narrative, though The Feeling offers a glimpse of what the Touchtones are capable of when everything clicks.

Girl Crush is reminiscent of a portrait drawn by a novice artist: it is clear that the subject is a copy of an original in front of them, but lacking in both the finer details to make it a sparkling duplicate and the creativity to make it something original. The resulting quasi-carbon copy covers are difficult to fully invest in as a listener.

To deliver an inspired rendition, one should first research the breadth of interpretations available rather than recreate the choices of one artist, should such options exist. In the case of the first track, Everybody Wants to Rule the World, the original artist Tears for Fears need not apply; this is as close to a duplicate of Sammy Rae & The Friends' version as can be from their EP, Songs We Wish We Wrote. While that alone is not wholly damning, the elements that make that rendition special — like the grittiness of the soloist's voice, the funkiness of the instrumentation, and the clear embellishment and playfulness of the melody as changed from the original — are notably absent. Because the other facets of the song are virtually copied, the comparison is nearly impossible to ignore.

The same aspects mentioned above plus simplicity of voicing in the arrangement plague Some Nights and Before He Cheats. And are the background voices in So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings really singing what I think they're singing in the instrumental break, and if so, am I meant to giggle? The second Sammy Rae cover, The Feeling, feels like a copy-and-paste but for the articulation, and the difference in interpretation does not feel like a conscious choice, as the clipped "la"s do not in any way represent an improvement.

There are dynamics flowing through the first couple of verses and choruses of So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings, and the Before He Cheats soloist features some original and comedic choices in an interpretation that feels new and unique to that person's rendition. These are the building blocks that The Touchtones may build upon for stronger and more intentional cover work in future releases.

I see the vision that the Touchtones are going for — emotional, passionate tracks that are high energy and get the listener actively involved and jamming. But, the execution simply isn't here. While there's positive moments spread throughout the EP, those are a bit too few and far between and most of Girl Crush is simply a bit underwhelming.

Starting with Everybody Wants to Rule the World, the opening doesn't land with the punch that I think the Touchtones were going for. The intro into the main track is a good idea, repeating that first verse with a bit of a break. But, it would have landed more powerfully if there's a different dynamic level between that first and repeated verse. I would have began with a mellower start — not as many vocal parts and a softer piano/pianissimo, maybe with a slight build. Then, once the count-in happens and all the vocal parts enter, it lands with more of an emotional punch. With the same vocal level throughout, the track's merely fine — but it doesn't wow or invoke the emotion I'm looking for.

Some Nights doesn't pack the punch I'm looking for either, largely because of the lack of a low-end in the arrangement. Granted, this is not an uncommon issue for an all-treble group like the Touchtones. But given how present the bass/low end is on the original track, not having that low-end presence here just makes it seem like part of the arrangement is missing. I'm not sure if this could have been something that would have been able to be fixed entirely in the studio in the best of circumstances, which is why song selection is quite important. Regardless if the group is attached to the song, knowing what songs will best fit the ensemble and then which ones to add to an album can make or break it, and Some Nights was a miss for me in this regard.

The stronger tracks are both Before He Cheats and So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings, with shout-outs to both Gracie Gallen and Larrisa Chen on some gritty solos. But, even with that, the background vocals aren't matching the energy of what I'm looking for on these tracks; I want the vocals to match the grit that the solos are giving, and I'm not quite getting that, either.

As the Touchtones move towards the next release, song selection is what I challenge the group to really focus on — what songs are best for the entire group to shine fully, and what emotions do you want the listener to feel? If the group can answer those two questions effectively, I have no doubt the singers have the skill and talent to deliver a high-quality release moving forward.