Can't say I'd been even vaguely aware of SEACHANGE previously, though it appears they've been acutely active in and around their native Nottingham for a good few years. They run a monthly club night called 'Whycan'twealljustgetalong' and have quietly unleashed a couple of singles called "AvsCo10" and the immortally-titled "Superfuck" on small labels over the past 18 months.
Shame on me, then, for allowing them to avoid my radar, as this four-track Matador EP makes it painfully clear that Seachange are a fine, coruscating proposition who are plainly keen to give us a bloody good emotional flaying as they proceed along the way.
They do feature the traditional bass/ guitar/ drums indie rock line-up, but also - crucially - boast Joanna Woodnutt's violin, perhaps THE instrument to sort wheat unceremoniously from chaff in rock terms. However, if you're expecting a deliberate fingers-down-blackboard scree similar to Sarah Curtis from ancient Manc indie heroes King Of The Slums, then think again, as her contributions are crucial, but thankfully easier on the ears.
"Glitter Ball" itself, is a great start. Drums roll like a lost military tattoo, guitars ring and chime and Joanna's violin cuts a dashing, if lonely swathe and sets up a tangible sense of longing, not at all relieved by Dan Eastop's desperate, defeated drawl. "She lost her nerve for a '60s moment," he howls, before pointing the j'accuse finger with "How could you end up like this?" The starlet goes down and everyone's got blood on their fingers. This is mournfully wired and exciting stuff.
It's not done yet, neither. "To Stay Or More" kicks off with skinny indie guitar and a blank drumbeat, before the violin again adds laconic class. Eastop's lyrics have a definite touch of the Reggie Perrin's about them as he sings of making for the waves, and adds the killer line "There's a bit of that in everyone", before shunning it to come over all defiant and sing: "I'm not leaving, I'll stand my ground." Moving, in a word.
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Arguably, though, "House Of Leaves" is your reviewer's highlight. The initial nimble rhythms only briefly sell you a dummy before Eastop's off again, unleashing scary stuff like: "When a picture leaves the wall, someone bad receives the call." Superstitious and tense, it finds the violin yawning into life and some very Keith Levene guitar criss-crossing the speakers and takes - seemingly - an age to let up. Really raw and wounded.
Final track, "Killing Time," meanwhile, is bare, spare and acoustically framed, with Eastop delivering thoughts like: "You speak like a traincrash, you look like a TV," - y'know, the stuff a girl REALLY wants to hear, right? - and adds a bald postscript to a bleak, but extremely promising EP. They have a full-length debut due in February, which already looks like an essential diary date, though bearing in mind I'm fagged out after just four tracks, God knows what emotional state I'll be in after twelve more of these intense buggers.
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