Rumour Cubes

We Have Sound Houses Also

Self-Released 

Out Now

Rating: 4/5

Imagine 'Where I End and You Begin' from Radiohead's Hail to the Thief, shorn of all bass and drums and that's roughly what greets you upon first hitting play on Rumour Cubes' excellent EP. Before long a kit and bass enter, and whilst the drumming is perhaps a little unimaginative, the rhythmic hook on the bassline more than makes up for it. For some reason I'm put in mind of Yes, but that could simply be because I listened to The Yes Album three times yesterday and can't get 'Wurm' out of my head. Nevertheless, it's when the E-Bow gets shelved and the distortion pedal kicked, that the track ('The University is a Factory'; Foucaldian power analysis or anti-fees critique, I wonder?) really gets going.

After the extended post-rock of the opener, the punchiness of 'Rain on Titan' (Blade Runner reference?) is unexpected, to say the least, and the violin leads counterpoint the violin figures nicely. Again, there's a crescendo and fade; though the track is surely more concise, it's no worse for it.

For my money though, the best track is the third, 'At Sea', which is kind of like some crazy folk-shoegaze crossover, like Air Cav if they decided to adopt the evil atmospherics of Trent Reznor, I don't know. It builds to a gentle peak and then that's that, the end of the EP. I hear more material is in the pipeline, so it'll be interesting to see where the band take their sound next: hybrid anti-folk or post-rock both beckon, and from this first offering, it's hard to see exactly which path Rumour Cubes will take.