THE VEILS have already caused jaws to drop via recent support slots with The Cooper Temple Clause and The Crescent, and it's not hard to see why on the basis of this cool debut EP.
Because, frankly, THE VEILS are already fully-formed and fantastic, bub. Featuring more tension and crescendo than would be considered healthy in any (im)polite society, "More Heat Than Light" then proceeds to turn the knobs up higher still. Frontman (and offspring of ex-XTC/ SHRIEKBACK mainstay Barry) Finn Andrews, meantime, posseses the kind of voice to scare small children at 100 paces. Seriously, he sounds like Jeffrey Lee Pierce strangling Jeff Buckley with a bent crowbar while John Fogerty reads the last rites. That's a sincere compliment, by the way.
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The additional tracks here also raise eyebrows: "Us In Leaves" is prettier and more consdered than the title track's dark, Stooge-y rumblings, but the remarkable "Creatures Of Joy" truly takes both the blue riband and your breath away, with Andrews' wracked tonsils singing cold, gravel-gargling blues over a stark blues reminiscent of a modern day Robert Johnson.
Really startlingly good. THE VEILS will not be shrouded in secrecy long into 2003.
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