We Were Promised Jetpacks - The Last Place You'll Look EP

We Were Promised Jetpacks - The Last Place You'll Look EP (****)
review for the skinny

The Last Place You'll Look reprises two standout tracks from We Were Promised Jetpacks' underrated debut LP These Four Walls – Short Bursts and This Is My House – in slower, more restrained versions. Despite Adam Thompson's primal wail being one of the band's strengths, it actually works quite well, highlighting the dark inspiration for those vocal dramatics. By now Jetpacks have the slow-build-to-ecstatic-release thing down pat, exemplified on With The Benefit of Hindsight, which accelerates from nothing into a magisterial finale. Opening track A Far Cry is even better, gathering steam with bump-and-rolling drum fills and brief flashes of big guitars, before somehow managing to keep its climax going for a full minute-and-a-half. Jetpacks' know what they're good at, and they're very good at it.

eagleowl - For The Thoughts You Never Had EP

eagleowl - For The Thoughts You Never Had EP (****)
review for the skinny

Edinburgh's eagleowl are notoriously slow workers, but it'd be missing the point somewhat to withhold acclaim until a full-length debut album emerges, when this EP has everything but the duration. Their slow-burning, fragile folk refuses to betray youthful energy, instead moving with care to preserve the peace behind each song. Most impressively, eagleowl know exactly how to construct a collection of songs that flows from first second to last: the fourth track of five Blackout is entirely instrumental, but feels essential in its context. Holding For The Thoughts... all together as one is the violin, which takes on such vivid character through its journey as to wrestle the EP's emotional focus from both the male and female singers. From its terrible melancholy on the title track, to its cautious step forward in Blanket, to its cheerful resolution in final track Motherfucker, it’s the violin’s personality that makes this record sing.

MySpace

We See Lights - We See Lights EP

We See Lights - We See Lights EP (***)
ep review for the skinny

If the thought of repetitive chanting and ethereal angel choruses brings you out in a rash, you can rest assured that young Scottish collective We See Lights ain't no New Age hocum. Instead they're a dream-pop-flavoured indie band that could really blossom if they focus on that distinctive sound, as highlighted on the title track to this self-titled debut EP. The maudlin violin and heavily-strummed guitars on Try cleverly depict the strain of the singer as he describes a failing relationship, while the performance of Shy's fantastical story is worthy of a Broadway musical - or Bedlam, at least. The EP isn't all great, but if they're looking at lights, we hope it's distant stardom.

We See Lights' MySpace