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tracklisting : diamonds in the dark, scarecrows in the rain, crosswords, diamonds in the dark (kid harpoon version)
well this one surprised me. while i enjoyed the bands debut single, ‘can’t fool me dennis’, over the spread of the album, the bands ramshackle indie ways didn’t gel quite enough for me. apparently, the band were all about the live experience so there was no way i would be able to get their thing. however, along the way, the band have obviously made a lot of friends as remixes from all manner of cooler than jesus names (erol alkan, justice, and james ‘simian’ ford) have touched up grooves and now even stepped in and have even taken over on production duties on new recordings. which is why, perhaps, that this ep of all new material impresses me far more than i was expecting.
starting with the stephen street version of diamonds in the dark, stephen has smoothed off the edges of old, and made a song that should hit the all important daytime radio playlists, the song is toughened up, and a lot more focussed and really really good. for the rest of the ep, word is that trash club meister, erol alkan has been on the button pressing duty giving the band a masterful harder dance fuelled edge. scarecrows in the rain starts with frantic acoustic guitar strummings before a whole layer of echoed slide, and backwards phased guitars come in taking the song into a rather special david lynch territory. superb. amazingly, from this jaw dropper, things get even better with the fractured distorted funk of crossword. where a demented cut up guitar groove is laid down in order to show any newcomers to the punk funk throne that some bands can chuck out a saturday night monster as a mere b-side and still rip up the rule book. damn, this is fierce.
thankfully, the mood is mellowed by the stripped back kid harpoon version of the lead track finishing things off nice and sweetly.
ok. i concede, the band do have something going on.
out on 679 records 4th sept 06.
to celebrate the release of this new material, i thought it would be a fine time to dig out a track that only officially appeared in 12″ last year, erol alkans reworking of the mad/fantastically over the top chant filled rant album track, ‘zoo time’. get it before people find out and i get in bother :
available : here
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