Coming to us via the ever-vigilant Sink & Stove label ( already responsible for the likes of fine new talent such as The Playwrights and The Organ), Bristol's LEAVE LAND FOR WATER announce themselves with an eponymously-titled EP that flirts with both straight-ahead indie guitar sounds and out-there post-rock without ever feeling the need to genuflect at those respective altars.
Which, in simple terms, means the five tracks making up this intriguing 23 minute affair are thought-provoking and defiantly tricky to categorise in all the best possible ways. The enigmatic "The Cinders Spread" leads us off with arcane noises off and implosions before a fragile, spidery guitar crawls across the glass and finally the dreamy ethereality is smashed as the band burst in on a brief wave of shoegaze-y sound. From thereon in, it works on building itself into a dark'n'taut marvel full of ambition and time changes, but the band are in full control at all times, with drummer Simon's deft, metronomic magnificence the kind of thing even Jaki Leibezeit would approve of.
Ensuing tracks like "Olad" and "Dead Museum", meanwhile, continually tease and torment with possibility. "Olad" is spooked, frail and an acoustic-based soft-focus workout which briefly raises the ghost of early Elliott Smith before a brief jaunt into kooky ambience, while "Dead Museum" is crestfallen and distant: in touch with pop of sorts, but with a lugubrious, dub-like backdrop. It's disquieting and quite lovely all at once.
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"Bonnie Banks" is something different again. This time, nervous, fragmentary guitar figures are the order of the day, while singer Lucas's voice is naked and attractively vulnerable. The song itself is again difficult to pin down with ease, though the likes of Hood or even a more anglicised Slint drift through your consciousness.
Whatever, it's a slowburning and patient power play, while the closing King Sevens Remix of "Dead Museum" kicks off crepuscular and claustrophobic with breathless vocal loops, but - once the beats kick in - streamlines itself to sound like a svelte and charismatic indie dancefloor contender. And a hypnotic one at that. Actually, it's every bit as good as the remainder of the EP and could well be the dark horse in the crossover stable, should LLFW so desire.
"Leave Land For Water", then, breathes confidently as it swims into its' new public environment. Of course, it's aware of the predators lurking in rock's deep, dark oceans, but it has the ingenuity, inventiveness and spirit to survive and instinctively knows it will make waves with the best of them.
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