This album is by a Canadian all-girl band that appears to have created its own musical style in defiance of popular market trends. On the evidence of this six-track EP, I think the girls have succeeded in marking out their own very distinctive territory.

Imagine an ordinary pub band with dead-beat drums, and a Hammond player with a smile tattooed to his face as he pays his instrument as if reading a playing instruction book. Well, this is not too far off the style that this band has cultivated, but it works! The first song, We’ve Got To Meet, opens with that dead-beat drum sound and a Hammond playing a repeated refrain, both at deathly pace. Then a distant, echoed, sharpy focused female voice kicks in with this single set of lyrics: “oh goodness me, we’ve got to meet. I need someone to have fun” Now if you think this sounds like a lot of nonsense you’d be wrong. It sounds simple, different and utterly beguiling. In fact so much so I played it during our recent RSL radio session. The pace quickens for the next song, I Am Not Surprised, that sounds very much like the first song but longer, with a full set of lyrics and a more complex structure. Yup, it hooked me as well. It’s Time To Go sounds like a further variation of the theme. Actually, what’s happening here is the girls have found themselves a sound, a musical identity and a different one at that. It’s one that has a mesmerising effect on the listener and forces one to stay the distance. It’s also a fresh and innocent sound, and when the tone and pace moves up a gear as in Sinking Hearts, that underlying sound remains. The next track There Is Nothing I Can Do reminds me of a wonderful, early Lisa Germano song. The short set of lyrics describes that awful self-cutting process: “so someone snuck into your room and it got back to me, now, I lie in my room and there is nothing I can do but cut and think of you.” This underlying sadness and pain dominates the EP. And the simple instrumental sounds, strong melodies combined with Katie Sketch’s detached and clear voice force one to consider what’s being said. I love this band and I love this EP.

4.5/5