This five-track EP might come after a fourteen-year musical hiatus, but it shows that Mark Witt hasn’t lost any of his skills. You might argue that it is because he took a break from that path and thus found himself unaffected and unbuffetted by the winds of fashion and fad that he was able to come back with a collection of songs that feel unique in today’s musical landscape.
Opening with the titular salvo, we are faced with a swathe of abrasive guitars and depth-charge bass bombs, but these gnarly sounds are balanced with an electronic groove that ripples through the heart of the song, a perfect balance of digital deliciousness and analogue energy.
“National Throat” runs on fuzzed-out guitars and shimmering sonics, six-string energy and an almost classical-infused raft of electronic sounds and “Words vs Worlds” is all about the relentless drive of that backbeat.
And if you thought that a change was coming, “That Kind of Boxer” is where it happens, a futuristic weave of ticking beats, layers of mellifluous digitalia and chiming synth washes. The EP rounds off with “Black Marker Instead”, perhaps the most traditional song found here, a superb blend of folky acoustica and dark-pop.
A great handful of songs, brilliantly unexpected and unexpectedly brilliant.