REVIEW – The Douglas Firs, Haunting Through EP
Haunting Through by The Douglas Firs
Tearing me away from my current favourites Deer Tick and The Twilight Sad this week has been debut EP from Aberdonian act The Douglas Firs, the brainchild of one Neil Insh. It sounds like the route to release has been a long one fraught with difficulty – indeed in the words of Neil, “I can’t really call it a demo, as it has taken years of painful obsessing to create!”
Thankfully, his efforts have not been in vain, and the EP is an absolute belter – even more so considering he is, at the time of writing, unsigned.
The opening track, “The Quickening” starts things off beautifully. It begins slowly, footsteps and drumming giving way to traditional Scottish accordion and multiple vocal layers. With the samples of the crowd noise, it almost brings to mind a packed local pub somewhere in the North of Scotland, albeit with a fantastic vocal over it. That is a compliment. It’s very nice to listen to. There is no song structure in the standard sense, but don’t let that put you off – it just works.
“Grow Old and Go Home” is a cracker. It isn’t particularly commercial, but does feel the most like a pop song I think, and moves along at a really nice tempo. Perfect listening for chilling out on a Sunday afternoon, as is final track “Soporific.” I would be hard pushed to pick a favourite track. Both work extremely well, and have had a lot of airplay here over the past week.
All in all, Haunting Through is a thoroughly enjoyable EP, and I thank Neil for giving me the opportunity to hear it. Currently available for the unreasonably low price of fifty pence to those of you who live in Edinburgh and ninety pence to those who don’t, I would wholeheartedly recommend it. You’d be lucky to find a Simple Minds cassette in a car boot sale for that sort of money, and believe me when I say this is infinitely more enjoyable.
Listen to the Douglas Firs, and buy the EP for a disgustingly cheap price by clicking this link.
Cheers, Cloody xx
