This four-track offering from This Et Al definitely goes some way towards making amends for the band’s recent absence. Sure, we’re not talking about a Portishead-style respite here, but after finally unleashing a wonderful debut album in the form of ‘Baby Machine’ early last year, many have been getting impatient to see where the quartet were headed next.

The answer lies here in this EP, which illustrates the different aspects of the band’s music pretty faithfully. Lead track ‘Figure Eight’ does more than enough to show that the necessary strains of urgency are still in place, as the song hurtles along with unabated intensity for a little over two minutes. For all their franticness, Wu’s vocals retain their melody and vitality right the way through, surfing atop an unpredictable wave of fuzzy punk. Everything adds up to a hard-hitting declaration of intent from a band unafraid to come out all guns blazing on their return to the spotlight.

While the opening track demonstrates This Et Al’s capacity to whip up a mini-frenzy, ‘Medicine Hammer’ and ‘Ice Age’ highlight a gentler side to the band. The former’s layers come together gradually as the song progresses, with delicate vocals pitted against a subtle rhythm section and an ever-thickening wall of guitars reminiscent of Trail of Dead in their ‘Madonna’ era. In spite of its fading post-rock outro, the latter is a poppier effort overall and certainly stands up well as an individual track, complete with some deft piano work and all four group members chipping in vocals. Paradoxically though, it ultimately proves forgettable in the context of the EP, on account of a slight similarity to the track preceding it, and owing to the undoubted quality of track four.

Instrumental ‘(The Tale Of) Frosty Jackson’ rounds things off in dark, confident style, ready to soundtrack the moment in which a film plot unravels uncontrollably. Potential visual associations for the track will always vary, but at the time of writing it seems to capture the feel of the closing scenes from Vittorio De Sica’s ‘Bicycle Thieves’, full of claustrophobia and confrontation as well as an underlying sense of tragedy and tears. However you picture it, it brings down the curtain on a proud, passionate release from yet another Yorkshire band with plenty to give.

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