A heavy head-nod inducing drum beat kicks off Dancers like Milkmaid Grand Army-era Midlake, all packaged in woozy guitar, fireside shakers and squiggly tape effects. It’s an assured, almost swaggering opening to this perfectly arranged track with Guy Weir’s guitar cool as a cucumber canoeing up a glacier, his instrumentation building elegantly against Leon Baker’s drumline towards a climax.
Laidback banjo and Ennio Morricone-style whistling introduced the gentle clip-clop of Runaway Shoes, with a delicate Mark Linkous style falsetto from Weir. Despite feeling a little too much in thrall to a rather cliched American sound its got enough affection in its bones to work well enough as a piece on its own, Baker’s slow and steady drum keeping it plodding along defiantly as it lurches into a creaky refrain of ‘Take me back home.’
Acrobats has crunchy spoken word over a travelling rhythm that doesn’t quite work, again doffing its cap towards alt-country with a la Johnny Cash, it feels like a pale imitation, the track works much better when it turns on a time into a Beirut-like ballad with clattering drumsticks over a soothing lead vocal. Once we’re back in country territory the music is working well, Baker’s drum pulsing with excitement, but that vocal is a mis-step that sits too close in the mix, distracting the ear and acting as a barrier to enjoyment. Almost with something of a sigh, when we return to the Zach Condon style section there’s a sudden burst of similarly bittersweet trumpet that feels like a necessity more than a moment of inspiration.
Closing track Throw It On The Fire finds Weir’s voice filtered and delicate over a tentatively played guitar, it slowly falls like a battered and broken prize fighter into a woozy lament akin to Bon Iver carefully crafting what will become a bittersweet anthem.
After such a superb opening track The Kindling coast along on a huge ammount of goodwill that it’s a shame when the record doesn’t quite follow thorugh to the early promise, but there are good moments to every one of this accomplished EP’s four tracks, however there’s an equal ammount that irks on those ensuing three tracks. Still, a hugely talented duo with some strong ideas and a lot of musical skill who are well on their way with his EP to creating something very impressive indeed.
[Rating:3]
