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The Pecadilies disappeared for a while, and it seems that they have spent that time listening to 80s music. The opening track, Chinese Knees raises memories of stadium rock, and handclapping in time tot he music. They don't over do the 80s thing though, and there are enough variations just to keep you interested.
Unlike current 'popular' indie bands, there is angst the music that shows they really mean what they're singing. Only the last song drags on a bit, there is a looped drum sample, and it seemed as if there were going to mess around with it and do something exciting, but they end up just singing over it instead.
Psychid are the finest band to have come out of Oxford University, not that they have much competition. During their time here they never seemed to fit in with much of the other bands, and even now they don't really fit into the whole musical scene in general. While on a maturity level similar to Coldplay and Travis, their music is far more intelligent.
They have the gently lilting melodies that do enough not to be boring. But most importantly their songs have a sense of drama about them, using dynamics and pauses. They write pop songs, but not in the throwaway sense that 'pop' current is, since their songs are generally quite complex, featuring the intertwining of the multiple vocal lines with guitars.
This EP features a couple of new songs, and a couple that you might recognise from their live shows. The title track Split Lip Sucker can only be described as majestic and magical. However the highlight of the EP are the two older tracks, which were some of the best songs from their live sets. Black Cat, White Eyes is the song that is closest to all those Radiohead comparisions, but yet so different from them. It's like a gentle watlz or lullaby, and this recording has improved so much from the near perfect demo. And harking right back to their original line up as the Full Monty, Move the Flag clever merges with End of A Season (the B-side to Welcome).
If Eps b-sides feature the songs there weren't good enough for the album, this album will be amazing, and worth waiting 3 years for.