Hullo hullo, it’s your editor-in-training, Orestes P. Xistos and I’ll be doing this week’s EP round-up. In honour of how good my axons and dendrites are doing, I’ll be assigning a Star Trek equivalent to each of these bands, whether you like it or not (hey, that’s a Dr. Who reference!).

Late Night Fiction – Polar EP

Hull has given us quite a few good bands, some of them have gone to pastures green (The Rocky Nest!) and others are still flying under the radar, doing some rock-ity rock. Late Night Fiction peddle a slightly down to earth hardcore (although there are the spacey bits that make it nicer). ‘Black watch’ kicks it out ol’ school, between the almost sweet voice clashing with the desperate screaming (and time shifting chords). ‘Exit, pursued by a bear’ was previously reviewed here, so let’s talk about ‘Smashy Smashy Beast Beast’, a rocking instrumental. Beam down a recon team of red shirts while you replay this one. ‘Dialectics’ is pure posthardcore and it’s a nice a tip of the hat to a genre that waxes and wanes. The real Pleasure Dome can only be entered after listening to ‘Relax Please’, the 7 minute woolly mammoth that caps this off. For fans of “heavy, soft, screeeam” dynamics with some interesting time signatures thrown in. Lovely EP.

This EP is: Scotty (of course). Carefully planned, loud as the engine room and actually more cerebral than it looks (both Pegg and Doohan versios of Scotty rock, though)

Late Night Fiction Facebook. Myspace. Bandcamp.

Cuushe – Girl / You Know That I am Here / But the Dream

Oh, this is gonna be hard to do. Not because it’s bad, but it’s a 12 track EP, so it could technically be an album BUT, it’s 3 songs and 9 remixes. I’ll focus on the 3 main tracks then. ‘Do you know the way to sleep’ is simply gorgeous, a lullaby of sorts for people who love the chilling sounds of heavily processed drones and simple but effective beats. I want a hug. Luckily, ‘I dreamt about silence’ is an aural hug; distant voices travel through the rarefied atmosphere, reaching you slightly distorted by the doppler effect. Most logical to love this. ‘9125 days of sleep waves’ is a crowning achievement of dream pop. The serenity of Cuushe’s voices plays tug of war with the rendered sounds that twist and swirl around her. This is gorgeous. The remixes are quite nifty, but never achieve the greatness of her own music, so think of them as the red shirts of the collection.

This EP is: Spock. May this music find you smiling long and prosper (that might not make sense).

Cuushe Website. Facebook. Soundcloud. Tumblr.

Likes Lions – 

Tapping. Once derided due to a zillion of frizzy haired (curse you, VO5!) guitarists, it became good again once Saint Dave Knudson cleansed it from its sins. THE weapon of choice for any math rock band that wants to wear the genre sleeve, the good people from Likes Lions understands this and do a proper tappy happy EP called First the head, later the tale. 5 easy peasy tracks that involve Math Rock and its fave minion, punk. ‘Nineteen’ is the nice opening dish (a salad with loadsa rocket, yeah?) and ‘Even with teeth’ is the heavy flavored cheese soup you get, croutons and all. Now, those two might not be all, end all, so the piece de resistance is ‘Living as ghosts’, where Likes Lions goes for the full monty and explode, subside, reside and then explode again. Certainly a very dynamic song, it’s both sunshine and rain. ‘Rome’ is as refreshing as a lemon sherbet and ‘Everyone looks better in sepia’ abandons all indie, punk or alternative pretense. Even Math Rock gets a kick in the hidey. This is more of a slightly proggy shade of rock, sparse, quiet and with the right amount of loud to blast it out (for a few moments) before diving back again. Supah Cool. Like The Picard Maneuver. 

This EP is: Picard. What he lacks in hair, exceeds in anything else. Eat that, Shatner fans.

Likes Lions Blog. Bandcamp. Facebook. Twitter. Soundcloud.

Bromheads – Holding the gun

What? Another Sheffield band? So it goes. This EP by Bromheads came out of nowhere (no USB wild goose chase? Fuck that!) but it’s called Holding the Gun, it lasts less than ten minutes (like a Gregg‘s cheese and onion pasty) and it has garage pop songs that are catchy and sunny (nice contrast to the clouds we are getting here – thanks hurricane season). ‘Holding the gun’ has no lyrics that say “Hey, I’m the first track, yo!” but it should: catchy, straight to the point and groovy. ‘Get it down’ is more interesting in a musical way, as the topsy turvy removes any sense of flim flam, rocking the casbah (no, not the one that was closed down). ‘Don’t you know’ is a happier pop track and ‘Purgatroy’ (or is it ‘Purgatory’? I dunno, I’m an atheist) is a bit of a missed opportunity: it could’ve been better, but ends before opening its wings. It does manage to do a great barrel roll, tho. You can stream it (and pre order it) here.

This EP is: Chekov. Doesn’t have too many lines in any episode, but always is memorable.

Bromheads Website. Myspace. Facebook. Twitter. Last.fm. Reverbnation.

Until next time, keep your ears peeled and …HOLY MOTHER OF McCOY! A FERENGI WAR SHIP! SHIELDS! SHIELDS! Ah, fuck them, they are selling first edition Decibully vinyls. Well played.