You can’t release a measly 4 songs that are about 3 and a half minutes long and pass it off as an EP. You just can’t. That’s, like, standard issue for a cd single back in the 1990s – 4 original songs. You can’t call than an EP. You just can’t.
Except, if you’re Indigos, you bloody well CAN do that. In fact, you can do whatever you damn well please. Why? Because these songs are the epitome of excellence, that’s why.
There was, back in the day, an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer where all the main characters had to merge themselves together in order to triumph over true evil. That’s kind of what’s going on here too, except this time, it’s a melding of all 4AD’s greatest artists circa 1989/90 – a triumphant frenzy of intense, climactic guitars, searing vocals, and a bird-flipping middle finger raised rigidly skywards.
‘Silhouette Of You‘ starts proceedings, a Breeders-like bass throb permeating through this urgent, dark eyed number, eventually leading to a brutal, crunching guitar assault that would make even Joey Santiago cautious about entering the room. How much of this is to do with the band’s joint producer here – IDLES guitarist Lee Kiernan (in collaboration with Ben Johnson) – I am unsure, but one suspects the force was strong in this one.
In stark contrast is the later ‘Out Of Body‘, which is quite bizarrely as comparable to Fairport Convention as it is to the likes of Throwing Muses. Like all four of the tracks here, it’s an absolutely thrilling ride, ultimately cataclysmic and a high octane rush unparalleled in EP form for a long, long time. Arguably the best track here though is the spookier sounding ‘I’m Healed‘, like The Cocteau Twins singing in a cave on a wintry day, while ‘Animalistic‘ is pertinently lo-fi by contrast.
This is quite simply a stunning EP that suggests we may have Album Of The Year material on the way…
