A daydream believer!
This band will take you on an ambient and trippy escapade floating you around the ether with the cuddly blanket of soft clouds, placing tiny familiar kisses over you with a school-boy innocence, and guiding you spiritually, whilst letting you choose your own destiny. No, I have not been drinking from the bottle under the sink again; this is how I feel listening to London band, Milk (not to be confused with the nasal-voiced American rapper of the same name). One listen to this EP and I don’t so much as think that I chose to review this, than somehow it chose me…
Anyone looking for Ramones-esque two-minute slices of catchy three-chord rock need waste no more time in reading any further. This four-track EP weighs in at around 20-minutes, and has been cultivated, nurtured and matured. First song, ‘Brighton Beach’ starts off slowly before building up through musical layers to a beautiful song. There is an Eastern influence over the melodies without it ever sounding Eastern. Vocalist Claire Robbin has a dreamy Trip-Hop voice that is silky and soft over the harder drums and electronica in the background. Don’t be mistaken though, this is definitely not Trip-Hop, but a more Ambient-Indie with an Eastern-Folk twist.
The beginning to next song, ‘20th Century Lights’ is almost haunting before the keyboards and drums kick in, and then things chill as the vocals kick in a little later. It is more accessible than the previous song. This is almost the ethos of Prog-Rock, but instead of Middle-Aged codgers sporting beards and pointy-hats, this has been repackaged to an Indie-Electronica generation. This could be a new genre of PIER - Progressive Independent Electronca Rock. This then leads nicely to the slow paced song of, ‘Pebbles’, which showcases the lovely voice of Claire with the deeper voice of Guitarist Adam Stark. This works well, and the musical carpet that flutters in the background sparkles as brightly as stars in a summer’s night sky.
There is more than a slice of Folk in last song, ‘The Dead Sea Blues’. It’s a simple song that has an earthy feel without ever sounding too raw. The production removes any additional dirt and leaves us with something slightly different.
This is a nice EP that brings you a thinking man’s music into you home and transforms your mundane life into a spiritual haven. It’s not something that you can put your finger on. It’s something that you cannot teach; you either have it or you don’t, and Milk certainly have it. The band have the ability to reach out to the intellectual side of society, whilst producing music that even a layman on music will enjoy. This is refreshing, enjoyable and down-right essential.