Ebbb: Shallow Hits has a strong center and a soft ending

Shallow Hits, Ebbb's July 10 release on Ninja Tune, is a 37-minute, 11-track album that announces its own limits. The title track runs 5:15, the longest moment on the record. The final two tracks, 'Youth' and 'I'm Not Enough,' add up to 4:55, less than the centerpiece alone. The set knows its size and states it early.

That compression mostly works. The tracklist places the title track at track six, dead center, after a run of five songs that never reaches four minutes and before a run of songs that mostly hover around three. 'Pander,' 'Side On,' and 'Remedy' form a middle section of blunt, functional titles, and the sequence from 'Now You Know' to 'Pander' to 'Shallow Hits' reads like a small argument: knowledge, compromise, thesis. Without a single sound, the tracklist itself carries a point.

The title is also a promise, and the album mostly keeps it. Nothing here runs past 5:15, and eight of the eleven tracks stay under three and a half minutes. That discipline gives the record a useful shape: a short opening statement, a long center, a quick recovery, a faster exit. A listener can trace the intention on the tracklist alone.

The flaw is the ending. A record can close on short songs and leave a mark, but 'Youth' and 'I'm Not Enough' are not just short; they are shorter together than the track that anchors the middle. That makes the last four minutes feel like a taper rather than a verdict. After 'You've Got Me Where You Want Me' and 'Moving On,' two tidy 3:28 cuts, the close should land a final punch. Instead, the structure pulls it.

At 37 minutes, Shallow Hits is a good argument for shorter records. It is also a reminder that where a record stops matters. The center is strong, the edges are thin, and the title says so before any music plays.

The tracklist

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