The Road Leads Where it's Led EP

Apologies. Today’s review is short, only an EP as opposed to a whole album, but, well, time constraints, etc… I promise I'll stop whinging about that soon.. Maybe...


Who: Secret Machines
What: The Road Leads Where it's Led EP
When: June 2005

Aaanyway.. Title track, and first track, incidentally, is a perfect intro, a welcome track, if you like, and with some cute use of words (“We communicate by semaphore, no language we’ve got flags”) we’re off to a good start. In for some nice, harmless fun. It’s followed by the only other original on the EP, Bring Your Friends, which is upbeat and drives along, although slightly overdoes the crash cymbal.

Then there’s the covers, which are.. Hit and miss.. Girl From the North Country (a Bob Dylan cover) and Deluxe (by German band Harmonia) are goodish, but forgettable. Astral Weeks, the Van Morrison cover (yeah, you did hear that right) turns into a J&M chain type thing with a nice growly guitar sound, and suitably passive aggressive lyrics. The rueful fadeout is nice too, just feels, suitable, somehow. Then there an.. interesting on classic Money (That’s What I Want), which slows it right down, and turns it into a sweeping soundscape that is not altogether unwelcome, and is actually rather enjoyable.

I generally like my psychedelia to have a bit more going on, a bit more drive, I guess. I don’t mind if it’s lazy, but it does need to move. This takes a while to get going, and apart from that really quite intriguing choice of covers, it’s essentially just a better than average covers EP.