Sometimes names aren’t everything. What would you, for example, expect of a four piece band from Kent called You Will Flood The River”? Something downbeat perhaps? You would be right in that assumption given the evidence presented in the four songs that comprise their EP “Distance Between Maps”.
The tempo remains deliberately slow over the course of this EP with no attempt made to please dancefloor, radio or even the casual listener. There are post punk stylisations aplenty but the energy so often the characteristic of that genre has been muted and replaced with a downbeat, near laconic, indifference that, in all likelihood, is an accurate reflection of the mood of the present day. Even the strongest song – “Failed DIY” – is so bleak as to make Leonard Cohen seem like Taylor Swift and the most accessible – “Something Better” – is still several miles away from a smile.
Minimalism is the order of the musical day as well. No room here for anything as flashy as a guitar solo and, with nothing more exotic than a harmony vocal in the arrangements, many might wonder if this is indeed the finished article. The truth is, I would imagine, that these songs are the very antithesis of the manufactured happy pills that count as pop songs these days and that makes them, for that very reason, worthy of a listen.