By Russell Barker

Everyone in the Oxford area knows how amazing the Evenings live experience can be, but can they reproduce it on CD? Well understandably they don't try, opting for a more laid back affair and proving equally adept at that too.

'I Didn't Remember' opens the EP, all hushed vocals submerged low in amongst an electronic sprinkling of fairy dust. Every now and again the tune rattles and stirs as if it's about to awake from its slumbers, before settling back down, smirking at the fun it had teasing the listener. The song ends in a frightening way, psychotic bi-polar voices begging for your attention.

'Paste' is the kind of song that soundtracks daydreams at the point they turn into nightmares. That it accomplishes this despite what sounds like some odd percussion (is that someone twanging an elastic band? is that someone shaking a walnut in a beaker?) is a feat in itself.

'Breathing Down Your Neck' has an eighties industrial sound to it. It's probably the least interesting thing here, due to the high standards set. It gets caught up in its own mystique and doesn't go anywhere.

Although 'Swimming On Your Back' threatens to mutate into a horrid chart hit at any point it is still a wonderful thing. Put this on in the garden on a balmy summer evening, look to the skies and you'll see a multitude of UFOs. This is what the Evenings achieve with this EP; they provide a soundtrack that will be the catalyst for the fertile imagination. Let them fuel your thoughts.