The trick with a good split EP is making sure the bands aren’t so radically different that most people will only like side A or side B, but nor are they so similar that you can’t distinguish which song belongs to which band.
With this split cassette (the second tape released by Scottish Fiction for International Cassette Store Day), the balance has been struck very well although it does lean towards the former camp, there is no confusing these two bands!
Kicking off with Gone Wishing (the solo project of singer/songwriter Owen McLaughlin), you are treated to three heartfelt acoustic tracks in the vein of Admiral Fallow, Frightened Rabbit and Washington Irving, a style of folky rock that Glasgow does exceedingly well, and now so does Dundee’s Gone Wishing.
The mainly acoustic instrumentation is occasionally accompanied by overdriven, reverb drenched electric guitars and plinky piano keys reminiscent of The Twilight Sad’s first album.
The highlight is opening track ‘The Watchers’ but the real star here is McLaughlin’s voice, sounding like an old-soul with ancient experience, a Scottish-tinged Willy Mason, you can imagine him strumming his guitar and singing folk tales in front of a burning fireplace in winter.
The only criticism to be found here is that with each song almost hitting the five-minute mark there is a good bit of repetition and maybe cutting the tracks down a little would better distil how pretty they truly are.
Glasgow-based trio Behold, The Old Bear, describe themselves as “Melodramatic Polar Blitz Alt Pop” and it’s as good a label as any for their highly unique and quirky tunes.
It is great to hear a local band strike out with something so original, with lo-fi acoustic guitars mixed with dark, space-age synths, warbling distortions and discords.
It’s electronic but not made for dancing, without much of a beat the tracks all have a film-score quality to them, the nearest comparison is a band like Animal Collective, although this will no doubt be disputed by many.
Although the lyrics are often dark and brooding; “I never thought we’d make it out alive or anything/I never thought we’d ever lose our minds” (‘Restless Days’), “last night I had a minor victory/I put my thumb through your eye” (‘Demons In Love’), “I was busy picking flowers for your grave” (‘Seven Maybe Eight’), but the approach to the songs is playful in a way that adds an eerie, horror-film quality appropriate for the season.
Indeed, when curiously named singer, Raindeer, breaks into the upper octave in ‘Restless Days’ he sounds like a man unravelling, and when you add his fragile whine to the layered vocals and whispering voices in closing track ‘Seven Maybe Eight’ you get a glimpse into some kind of madness.
All in, it’s a great combo, from Gone Wishing’s warm, acoustic yin to Behold, The Old Bear’s dark, electric yang, and another triumph for the growing popularity of split tapes.
Words: Callum McSorley
