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Partly Cloudy is a quartet (now a quintet, actually) from Lexington, Kentucky, who have parlayed their recently released five song EP, Arm Your Weapons, into a calling card for an ambitious nationwide tour. The five tracks on Arm Your Weapons are certainly competently performed, yet one gets the feeling that there is more, much more, lurking under the surface.

Partly Cloudy is not lacking in energy, and that energy is tightly focused on each track of Arm Your Weapons. There are a number of flourishes here and there on Arm Your Weapons, particularly on the title track, and plenty of power chords and competently written and executed guitar solos to go around. If there is a song that misfires, it’s All You Need, but even in that case it suffers more from a comparison with the other track on Arm Your Weapons than from any glaring deficiency. Actually, All You Need has one of the more interesting guitar solos of any track on Arm Your Weapons; it’s more the composition than the execution of this track that perhaps needs some work.

These guys might become really huge if they can sharpen their songwriting skills a bit and get a bit more production guidance --- a funny comment to make about a project like this, but there you are. Partly Cloudy has the talent, the desire, the material, and certainly the fortitude to go as far as they want to go. A little more stirring and a little more time on the burner may make them a household name.