Manitoba frontman Dan Snaith is a talented fellow. Not only does his band produce very slick 60s inspired music, such as last year's "Up In Flames", but he's also got a lot of other skills and talents. For instance, he's an excellent sequencer and editor. Their last album was only forty minutes long, but the high quality of the tracks on there left you wondering how good the ones that didn't quite make the cut were. I assumed that Snaith, being a smart man, would eventually release a couple of other tracks from the same sessions eventually, because I couldn't possibly imagine that only the tracks that made it to the album were worthy of release.

I was correct. From Manitoba, comes this neat little EP package, consisting of one album track, and three 'also ran' songs. The album track, as you may have guessed from the EP title, is Jacknuggeted, which was also one of the better songs from the record. With it's simplistic three-chord strum, backed up with some absolutely beautiful sitar and organ noises, it has a beauty defined by its very straightforwardness. It was definitely a track worth getting out of the cupboard again for another release.

The next two tracks are also strong. Olé is a lot more bright and aggressive than Jacknuggeted, with a sprawling yet melodic structure that is punctuated by occasional brushes of hard percussion. Following on from this is Thistles and Felt, a very electronic sounding affair that features sampled guitar, keyboards, and strings. Despite sounding like it's been pieced together on a computer somewhere, it doesn't sound artificial, it's more akin to seeing a beautiful stained-glass window with cracks all over it. The cracks certainly make it different, but it's still a thing of beauty. For me, Thistles and Felt is definitely the best of the three new tracks presented here.

The last track, Seaweed, is a bit of a disappointment though. You can't help but feel that the band was going for a more epic, substantial feel to this song, but it just never ends up coming together. A xylophone melody, which is the backbone to this track, just isn't interesting enough to do much with.

If I had any complains about this EP, it would be that it's still too short. I'm sure that there are some other decent tracks that are lying about in the studio just begging for release. Just a couple more would flesh this out to a 6-track affair, which would have made it great value for money. With just four tracks, it does play a lot like a standard CD single, except with better than average B-sides. That complaint made, for your ten dollars, you'll get one average track, one good track, and two excellent tracks. You can't really argue that that is a good deal.

Manitoba frontman Dan Snaith is a talented fellow. Not only does his band produce very slick 60s inspired music, such as last year's "Up In Flames", but he's also got a lot of other skills and talents. For instance, he's an excellent sequencer and editor. Their last album was only forty minutes long, but the high quality of the tracks on there left you wondering how good the ones that didn't quite make the cut were. I assumed that Snaith, being a smart man, would eventually release a couple of other tracks from the same sessions eventually, because I couldn't possibly imagine that only the tracks that made it to the album were worthy of release.

I was correct. From Manitoba, comes this neat little EP package, consisting of one album track, and three 'also ran' songs. The album track, as you may have guessed from the EP title, is Jacknuggeted, which was also one of the better songs from the record. With it's simplistic three-chord strum, backed up with some absolutely beautiful sitar and organ noises, it has a beauty defined by its very straightforwardness. It was definitely a track worth getting out of the cupboard again for another release.

The next two tracks are also strong. Olé is a lot more bright and aggressive than Jacknuggeted, with a sprawling yet melodic structure that is punctuated by occasional brushes of hard percussion. Following on from this is Thistles and Felt, a very electronic sounding affair that features sampled guitar, keyboards, and strings. Despite sounding like it's been pieced together on a computer somewhere, it doesn't sound artificial, it's more akin to seeing a beautiful stained-glass window with cracks all over it. The cracks certainly make it different, but it's still a thing of beauty. For me, Thistles and Felt is definitely the best of the three new tracks presented here.

The last track, Seaweed, is a bit of a disappointment though. You can't help but feel that the band was going for a more epic, substantial feel to this song, but it just never ends up coming together. A xylophone melody, which is the backbone to this track, just isn't interesting enough to do much with.

If I had any complains about this EP, it would be that it's still too short. I'm sure that there are some other decent tracks that are lying about in the studio just begging for release. Just a couple more would flesh this out to a 6-track affair, which would have made it great value for money. With just four tracks, it does play a lot like a standard CD single, except with better than average B-sides. That complaint made, for your ten dollars, you'll get one average track, one good track, and two excellent tracks. You can't really argue that that is a good deal.