Holy crap - Mother Vulpine are serious. Slightly pompous titles apart, they sounds like a seething, sneering beast of angular rock. There's some splendid baggy guitars like local contemporaries This Et Al and intricate slashes of tingling riffs that lacerate their way through the gut pummelling power of the bassline in 'For a Friend...'.

To say Mother Vulpine have an urgency about them is an understatement; 'Keep Your Wits...' sees the vocals spat out in such a rush that they tumble over and get swamped by the many layered swathes of guitar that accompany the whole track. The exception is the ferociously restrained break-down which prickles malcontent. Only downside I can see is the two tracks are very similar to each other in sound - I had to constantly keep checking the track listing to work out which one I was listening to. That aside, this is a brutal statement of intent.

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