This 6 track ep lasts all of 17 minutes which is obviously why it needed a three page long press release to accompany it. The main reason could be to stop reviewers like me getting bored and falling asleep while the CD is on.
Glass Ankle are from Congleton, Cheshire (near-ish to Manchester) and play gentle, soft indie-folk music to twiddle thumbs too. Sadly it's not in tribute to any footballers with Glass Ankles as that would have captivated me and held my attention more than the music on this CD. I mean no disrespect to any of the band who suffered tragic illness but it still doesn't make the music any less beige.
Yes, the artwork with a bear on a mountain and sea shells and birds in the sky is far more interesting than the anything I hear on the CD. That they compare themselves to masters of boredom like Yo Lo Tengo is no surprise as this is nicely produced and sounds OK as background but I can't imagine anyone hearing these songs on the radio and turning it up, let alone waiting in fevered anticipation to find out who the songs are by.
The record opens with its most interesting noise and after those first 5 seconds it's all downhill 'til the last song on the album. Yes, I like the noise at the start of Poor Boy but once the ukulele kicks in it all goes far too Ed Sheeran on a bland day for my liking.
The swooping, whooshing sounds at the start of Secondary Now are OK and if I could mix out the vocals it would make a nice subdued background music, but Greg Jackson is trying far too hard to make himself sound like a cross between Chris Martin and Ed Sheeran for anyone's good. The fact he ends up with an edge of (The High Llamas') Sean O'Hagan is probably accidental.
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Fragment, at a mere 33 seconds, passes by quickly enough and really just sounds like part of the intro to Unlike You: a song of yearning that is far to like far too many beige and bland indie-type crap to have a name like Unlike You. More budget High Llamas-type blandness that is only lifted by the fact that it has some interesting lyrics.
Fleeting is another short instrumental piece that sounds like a bit of library music before the CD finishes with by far the best song on it, One Of Them: a single they put out that Tom Robinson chose as a "Fresh Fave" and it's a cut above everything else on here; a good song of lust that is a bit similar to the recent Dexy's single about a woman who has a certain wobble. If you want to hear anything by Glass Ankle, One Of Them is the song to pick.
For me this is a 17 minute long mini album that's about 12 minutes too long. Ho hum.
Glass Ankle online
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