This Name Your Price wizard rock EP comes to us from Cincinnati, Ohio’s This Is My Nightmare (seriously, there’s a lot of wizard rock in Ohio). The project appears to be a solo act, with all of the songs (along with their other non-wrock releases) being just a single voice and acoustic guitar. Fans of lo-fi wrock will definitely gravitate towards this release, especially if tongue-in-cheek pop punk is their thing. The EP’s liner notes let us know that the entire release was recorded on a phone, save for the last track that was recorded via built-in mic on an iMac.

Yes, This Is My Nightmare would have fit in perfectly on MySpace during the initial wizard rock explosion.

The EP’s cover evokes the iconic first (and up until recently, only) release from American Football. Listeners waiting for the quiet chiming guitars and earnest vocals of that band won’t get what they want, however, as the EP kicks off with the fast paced “Growing Up Magic”, a tale of an auror who feels like their high point in life was their time at Hogwarts, and wondering if their former classmates might feel the same.

“Muggle Dueling Club” gives us a protagonist who grew up muggle, and would prefer to resolve their differences with fists rather than a wand. The acoustic pop punk continues on “Is This Thing Still On?” which finds our protagonist apologizing slightly profanely to someone from their past about how their relationship deteriorated sine they left Hogwarts.

The next track “Everything’s Coming up Mudbloods” sounds like it could have come from Saves The Day’s first album, clocking in at a whopping 47 seconds and poking fun at all the purebloods who think they’re so cool but can’t ever seem to come out on top of anything.

“OTP ’91, or If We Went To Hogwarts” closes out the album with another short, but sweet, tune about how much two seemingly opposite students at Hogwarts can fall in love. Tempo is sort of a floating construct on this song, but that’s OK – the tune is simple, to the point, and a worthy closing track.

The americanquidditch demos represent a fun, quick listen for wizard rock fans who don’t need layers of instruments and cracked versions of Auto Tune to feel like they’re listening to a “real” band. Listening to this EP definitely reminded me of hearing bands for the first time at a show in someone’s living room, and this reviewer thinks that a split EP between This Is My Nightmare and Hogwarts, A History would sound pretty freakin’ good.

If anything, the americanquidditch demos remind us that not all wizard rock needs to come from a “wizard rock” band. The love of Harry Potter, and the emotions it makes so many feel, come across in many different styles and types of fan-created music. Do yourself a favor and download (or purchase for just a few dollars if you wish) the americanquidditch demos EP and kick back for a few minutes of fun.