White Laces - White Laces

From time to time as a reviewer you get landed with something so beautiful it leaves you all 'wide mouth frog' in disbelief at its beauty. Enter the self titled EP from America's White Laces.

Comprising of five songs, this EP's sound is reminiscent of The Wrens with clever use of the chiming guitar, just the right amount of distortion and sharp jabbing keyboards wrapped around the mellifluous vocals. Throw it into a pot with early Buffalo Tom and it's a wondrous joy of hooks, bristling with verve, guile and a swarm of effervescent enthusiasm.

Opener 'Motorik Twilight' is cleverly constructed, its transparent production complementing the heady guitars and pounding drums perfectly. 'Spirituals' is much more spiky and agile and has more than a few tinges of lo-fi about it as the vocals are quite low in the mix but the rattling jerky guitar evolves into a heap of bright chords through to a crate of fuzz.

'Sick of Summer' has more than a hint of The Twilight Sad about it with its rolling heavy guitar start but as the song unfolds the slack jawed vox holds the whole damn lot together, it even gets ready to fade out, but the taut chords kick back and unleash a squall of r&b noise. 'Honeywood' is more a release of wild abandon as it's simply races along at breakneck speed and while it's not a groundbreaking new sound, the arrangement is what makes it so irresistible.

The whole thing closes with 'Psykick Healing', which dips into a much darker, moody place. With its molten heavy riff and melancholy finale, it's a fitting and eerie end to what can only be described as a brilliant, brilliant EP. If they can replicate this into an album format while maintaining its muscle in the live arena then White Laces could explode in 2011. Magical.