“Darkly poetic … raw, intelligent, and unapologetically human.” – Alternative Music Review
Erich Russek and his long-running project Poets in Heat return with Childish Things, a six-track EP that turns the stories we thought we knew inside out. Rapunzel, Humpty Dumpty, Chicken Little, and other familiar figures are stripped of their innocence and reimagined as allegories for adulthood — fractured myths that speak to despair, revelation, and resistance.
The result is a collection that is as unsettling as it is moving. Alternative Music Review described the record as “ambitious, unsettling, and at times deeply moving,” noting that Poets in Heat are not chasing nostalgia but revelation: “pulling childhood stories apart to reveal something uncomfortably adult beneath them.”
From the haunting “Once a Heart is Broken (Humpty’s Defeat)” to the swampy satire of “Froggie Went a Courtin’,” Childish Things unfolds like a series of bedtime stories for grownups — cinematic in scope, slyly subversive in execution. The grooves pulse, silences cut like knives, and Russek’s unmistakable vocal presence keeps the listener hovering between dream and warning.
Standout moments include the hypnotic “Say My Name (Rumpelstiltskin),” called one of Russek’s strongest vocal and production performances, and “The Sky Will Fall (Chicken Little),” a frantic call to action that reframes the fable as a commentary on collapse and panic. The closing track “Froggie Went a Courtin’” was singled out as the EP’s peak, praised for its mysterious groove and “most satisfying blend of sound and story.”
Childish Things is not an EP to sing along to — it’s one to sit with. A work that unsettles as much as it enlightens, it asks listeners to reconsider the narratives we inherit and the myths we live by.
Listen to Childish Things here:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/6VL6kpONMAEWpSngst1GBa?si=fPFcymlyQ5CbU2ybAJmgeg
Website: www.yamallama.com
Instagram: @poetsinheat
Facebook: facebook.com/poetsinheat