Sir-Vere are not a band that does things by halves. The Milton Keynes-based trio has a massive following worldwide, and keeps said following happy with a constant stream of remixes and alternate versions drawing on the talents of a close but varied pool of talented friends.
This, their latest EP, arrives very much in the same tradition. Where some bands would be happy to chuck out a single from their last album – 2019’s aptly named and widely lauded Psychoballisticfunk – with a reworking or a b-side for company, Sir-Vere instead offer us a 10-track bumper package that is knocking on the door of an hour’s worth of entertaining listening.
Quite the diverse smorgasbord of sounds it is too. The EP’s title track and fellow album favourite ‘All Funked Up’ form the main backbone of the release, with four different versions of each on the slab, but the various takes on their rowdy, punky electro breakbeat grooves are markedly individual.
Top of the list has to be the versions of each track by one Rory Hoy, probably best known as the author of recent breaks bible ‘The Little Big Beat Book’ but also a DJ and producer of growing renown. His reworking of the title track is grand and dramatic, slowed down to half speed and run through with pianos and funky guitar and finally exploding into a dancefloor filler after plenty of tease. His take on ‘All Funked Up’ meanwhile, is the best thing on the EP, taking the breakbeat origins and re-routing them through shiny disco drama, with utterly irresistible results.
Elsewhere, their former band member One True Jedi – who also later enjoyed a stint on the Skint label as Environmental Science – is witnessed employing a veritable army of drums, electronic and sampled alike, to offset the guitar-driven abandon of ‘All Funked Up’ and create a superlative mid-tempo hoedown. Vodzilla’s version of ‘Drop Dead Gorgeous’, meanwhile, is a corker too, from singer Craig Hammond’s Fall-like vocals to the spacious electro drop. Dead Spider, meanwhile, takes on ‘Karmakill’ and drops some of the gnarliest, punkiest dubstep we’ve heard since Rusko’s ‘Cockney Thug’ first showed its face.
The band assures us that a new, full on Sir-Vere album is on the radar, but this is plenty to keep us fans of the threesome happy in the meantime. Loveable, for sure.
