If a single’s, or in this case, EP’s, primary job is to beat a path towards a longer release to follow, to tease the potential audience and test the water, then Monday 10:55 performs its role so brilliantly that it should be demanding a pay rise.
Ahead of a debut album to follow not too far down the line, the three tracks found here not only give us an excellent insight into Jamie Hyatt’s latest sonic vehicle, but the sonic and dynamic gaps found between them is such that you wonder what he might be able to create there too, given a bigger sonic canvas to fill. A question only answered by the album to come, perhaps.
“Messed Up Your Head” explodes into a higher sonic gear in a way that sits between Blur’s “Beetlebum” and “Song 2,” but don’t hold that against him, and it isn’t as if they invented such shock tactics, rather, they commercialized an earlier college-rock trick. And then, by contrast, the title track opts for a more slow-burning sonic rise, dreamily drifting from understated lowlands to more cinematic heights, adding sonic intrigue and musical interest as it goes. “D Minor,” which rounds things off, takes a third route, starting out spacious and atmospheric, subtle and minimalist, and then choosing to stay in such a space, creating music as much from the notes and chords as from what lies between them.
Oxford, UK, was always a bastion of shoegaze and dream pop back in the day. Although what we have here is slightly too mercurial to fit neatly into such a pigeon-hole, it will appeal to anyone who still gives Slowdive’s Souvlaki a regular airing or who always wished that My Bloody Valentine were slightly less challenging to listen to.
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