Muncie Girls

Sleepless [EP] (2013)

Rich Cocksedge

Exeter's Muncie Girls released far and away my favourite EP of 2012 in Revolution Summer, containing five flawless songs that showed how this young trio had everything fall into place. With Sleepless, Muncie Girls offer up four songs laced with the band's trademark guitar/drum/bass sound which one would never call overly energetic despite the occasional outburst from Dean McMullen on guitar and Luke Ellis on drums. The icing on the cake though is always Lande Hekt's vocals, which are definitely coming over as more confident these days which was evidenced in two recent shows I saw when the band supported Lemuria.

I'll be totally honest and admit that I was initially a bit deflated listening to this record, as I was constantly comparing it to Revolution Summer (which will always be a firm favourite of mine), but after a while the songs started to take me away from any direct comparison and they began to settle down nicely in my head in their own right. All four songs are very good, with McMullen's guitar leads and riffs adding the musical focal point and Ellis coming along leaps and bounds behind the drums. Hekt plays her four strings with an ease that gently nudges the songs along whilst she has a voice that is as soothing as warm honey and lemon when you've got a ragingly sore throat. There is also the addition of keyboards on some of the tracks which add to the sense of warmth that Muncie Girls give off in their music.

Three of the four tracks have a similar structure and feel with the title track standing out as my favourite on the record, but it's "Music Forever" which offers up a slightly different direction with more of a contemplative and relaxed feel across almost five minutes.

This might fall a bit short of Revolution Summer in terms of overall quality of songs but Sleepless is still a very good release and shows why Muncie Girls are gaining the attention of many people throughout Europe. There is also a notable difference in the production between the two releases and I'm finding it hard to know which I prefer, or if I should care, as both have their merits: Sleepless seems to have a sense of space in the recording whilst Revolution Summer had a tighter feel to it.