Heeeeeeeeeeey, it’s been a long time since we’ve done one of these. I blame Duncan Sheik‘s nifty new musical, a love story set in Edwardian Times. About fucking time somebody wrote about that massively underrepresented era.

Whoa! Sorry, I go on tangents. WELCOME to our lovely EP round up, I’m your very entertaining (and slightly wacky) host, Orestes P. Xistos, climbing the pecking order in this shithole of a website (TM) one brown nose at a time.

In our usual analogy form, we will be comparing each of these EPs to each Female Titan from Greek mythology. Why six female Titans? Because we are trying to atone for what basically constitutes a Patriarchy (i.e. this site’s owners are chauvinistic omnivores). DOWN WITH THIS PHALLOCRACY!

Ahem, sorry, for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself. EPs, right?

Hearse Pileup – Pretty Shiny Things

I once found a tape on a car I repoed back when I was living in Brownsville. It had “The Spirit of ’79” scribbled with Esterbrook and although side A was unplayable, side B had three tracks. Half rambling punk shenanigans, fuzzed out from here ’til McAllen. Loud but reassuring in the form of ‘Last Time’, half The Strokes, another half Generation X. Speaking of Generation ___, ‘Generation Y’ is a proper punk call to arms to The Download Generation to stop typing away their frustrations and actually do something. Will they do something? “Drink to just feel alive“. Ah, we weren’t that despondent as kids, we were ‘Pretty Shiny Things’ that got our stuff the old fashione way: through tantrums. Hearse Pileup does similarly, but with guitars instead the cries and wails of a spoiled brat. Works for me, just like the tape, marked Pretty Shiny Things.

This EP is: Themis – because you need order and counsel to make it these days. And that ain’t no lie.

Tetsuo – The Embiggening

The brave and the bold fight crime, the rest do get busy living or get busy dying. Tetsuo got busy playing guitar. Better than snorting Nescafé (don’t knock it ’til you try it [EDITOR’s note: Don’t do it, Orestes is mental]), I guess.

The Embiggening is a safe haven for the ones missing the dirtier taste of grunge, as ‘Deaf’ is the relentless opening track, rocking a talk box afflicted solo. Nice. ‘Shinigami eyes’ feels at home with visuals like that time Ikki used his Phoenix Phantom Punch on that stupid Gold Armour Saint. God, I hate those smarmy Zodiac assholes. Screamed vocals, thunder riffs, yep, they also appear in the operatic and funny ‘Biscuits in my beard’. I can’t identify with that (my religion doesn’t allow beards) but I can identify with the odd crumb messing your day. ‘Coming down’ is a bit Deftones-ey, with the soaring chords swandiving from a slightly too tall cliff. ‘Transitus Fluvii’ is a cool lil’ segue and ‘Drones’ is where the band lets it all out, when The Embiggening becomes death from above and sulphur rains on the sinners for 4 hours (or half a cricket game – I hate that game). Need something heavy? Call Tetsuo.

This EP is: Theia – A giant planet crashing with Earth, with a red headed girl wounded on the beach saying “I feel sick”.

The Penny Licks – Cats loves wires

As I was going to St. Hillsborough, I met a man and a woman, both with many synths and drum machines. In each synth and drum machine there was a song, in every song there was a quiet, ghostly voice and a warbly waveform. How many warbly waveforms were in each song? I don’t know, but five songs are here, marrying lo fi and 80s electropop. ‘Cats love wires’ is paranoic, almost ready to climb up the walls, feet first, into another dimension. ‘I can read your mind’ is Vivian Girls with less fuzz and more synths; ethereal and dark in a peasoup fog. There’s a quicky instrumental that’s more an afterthought than anything else. ‘Love buzz’ is a bit Gothic, like night mares running over the hill; hooves on fire, eyes glowing evil in the dark. ‘The party’ is a bit bossa nova-ey goodbye. Might need to call that lounge I used to work at and offer this as a tribute to my ex-boss (he was an asshole). Lovely music for lovely cat-loving fans.

This EP is: Rhea,  who knew her way around lions, which are basically tamed cats with less world domination plans.

Young Peculiar – Young Peculiar EP

Now this brings a memory: I once worked as a barman at [edited]’s when I lived in Lafayette, in the worst possible shift ever. The only good thing is that on any night that wasn’t a weekend, we had a jazz band. Young Peculiar slightly sound like them, but there’s less seedy businessmen with cheap, shiny suits and working women. Oh, well. ‘Red and Gold’ is like a Tom Collins, fresh and breezy, ‘Way it words’ has a bit of Latin-flavoured guitar, just like a Paloma cocktail. ‘Chemical Comedienne’ is the Vodka Seven here: strong, straight to the core and classy. A bit of Alisson Krauss you say? Definitely. Sweet bass too. ‘PGRS’ is quiet and slightly sobering, like an espresso shot (with a Baileys chaser, natch). You like a jazzy pop rock? Here’s four track. Tip jar is empty. Put some bread.

This EP is: Mnemosyne, whose memory of those low lit bars still lingers to this very day.

Red Measure – No one’s face

Sick distortions and some drums that I want to describe as pounding (but won’t due to site’s policy) are what identify this specimen called No one’s face by dirty rockers Red Measure. ‘Black and Grey’ will take you on a tour through dinky ass dive bars where people spell “gray” instead of “grey”, ‘Deep six’ harks to some dark, foreboding place that hasn’t been cleaned since ’93 and where only the sound of rain breaks the deadly quiet and ‘Dark tongue gel’ kicks the jams better than those brothers whose name I won’t bandy because I don’t want to get in a fight with them. Gotta love the solo. Want grimy, seedy rock? This is your huckleberry.

This EP is: Tethys, whom is as treacherous as the sea, taking you away from the shore in an unforgiving riptide.

Blood Sport – ø

Somewhere, in a small cage in a basement in Sheffield, 3 bad dudes fight Dragon Ninja every single night, but not with their fists, but with their ever so dissonant music that combines a tribal rhythm section (a one man army not banging the drum slowly) and two duelling guitars (one might be stranger than the other). Feed them a stream of consciousness lyrical approach that would make Cedric Bixler Zavala become more personally acquainted with a thesaurus and you’ve got this band. ANYWAYS, there’s a brand new finished song in this ep, called ‘ø’ (the song AND the EP). The song comes out of its cocoon between encompassing notes and histamine-fuelled beats. ‘Dolla make me holla’ is presented in demo form and God knows how the finished product will sound, because as a demo works r8 good. Just add a coffee and it’s perfect.

NOW, if you’ve ever seen this band you know they have that moment where everyone pays attention and see how the Lego pieces fit together (just go with it). That moment is a song called ‘Palomar’ and this lil’ EP contains two remixes of said track, put together by some hierophant called Hobson. ‘Hobson sets foot in Palomar 1’ slooooooows everything down to a crawl, making it an eerie ambient piece that could work for that  highway scene in Solyaris (our defacto example of Art Cinema* in this shithole of a website called Sloucher). ‘Hobson sets foot in Palomar 2′ continues the slow, seeping through clay pace, with echoes and reverbs and delays making everything resonate like lost choirs in an abandoned monastery (thanks, Henry the VIII, you dick swingin’ fucker). Hopefully an album is closer than farther because this is fine and dandy but I need my Blood Sport dose a little taller (mit milch).

This EP is: Phoebe – Radiant moon in a bittelry cold night.

That’s it. This is the EP round up you deserve AND need. Take that, Batman meme. Incidentally, I wish my editor was working more with this website and less with Johnny Depp: