Labels: No Idea Records
Review by: Dan Bennett
And so, just like that Small Brown Bike drop a new 7″ on us. I can’t believe that the band have been inactive since the release of 2003’s “The River Bed”.
Of the two tracks on the 7″, “When We Run” is the track that will sound familiar to most people. You can immediately tell this is the Bike as soon as the beastly rumble of the bass kicks in supporting the weight of the sludgy guitar, and if you haven’t got it by now Mike Reed’s unmistakable vocals will certainly give it away. Not much has changed here though, it certainly fits in with the band’s penultimate release, “Nail Yourself To The Ground”, and at the same time puttting to shame the slew of copycat bands that surfaced after their initial demise.
The B side “Hourglass” is another matter, even after a heavy bout of plays I still can’t decide as to whether it’s one of the weakest Small Brown Bike songs or if it’s some kind of subtle genius that will just take time to set in, hopefully the latter. It just comes across as a rather weak song that lacks the passion that we’ve come to expect from them, a slow dirge that seems to be more of a gruff ballad than I’d have liked.
I think we’ve all been in that situation whereby a band we hold close to us produces material that’s so radically different from what we’ve come to expect that we are left emotionless about it, and as usual, time will only tell if we come to accept it.
Unfortunately it’s not the full on aural assault I was expecting and whilst “Composite Vol.1” offers a shaky start for the band’s new beginnings, hopefully volume 2 will bring us two killer A sides as opposed to just the one and prove me wrong.