Having collaborated on musical ventures since their childhood, brothers David and Peter Glennie established and dismantled bands at a rate of knots during the 1990s in their quest for the perfect vehicle. Eventually, they fetched up in Manchester as the new Millennium dawned and began to carve a niche for themselves as EXIT 52 on lengthy support tours to the city's much-lamented favourites James.
And, in a putsch worthy of Mark.E.Smith, the duo then proceeded to sack everyone minus the surname Glennie from the band during 2002. But, despite this apparently petulant show of sibling support, it looks as though the brothers Glennie made exactly the right decision in the long run, as "Dandelion" is an exceptionally good first EP and a notable statement of intent.
Undoubtedly, Exit 52 exhibit cinematic tendencies, and the EP's title track sounds like a delicious collision of the old and new to these ears. Built around a bucking bronco guitar riff that's a slight return to Depeche Mode's "I Feel You", "Dandelion" also features cooler theremins than anything since the first Portishead album, dashes of hammer horror organ, baritone guitar straight outta "The Ipcress File" and David Glennie's vocal which comes on like a cross between Alabama 3's D.Wayne Love and Vinny Peculiar. It appears to be a tale of gangsters and urban murder most foul ( the kiss-off line seems to run: "Can you handle a beretta? And your Daddy's the Pope of the streets" ) and is gripping stuff from head to toe.
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The EP continues to bask in tangible atmosphere as it continues on. "Nineteen Eighty-Three" is a insistent, bassy thrummer with glitchy, analogous asides and flashes of stinging guitar reminiscent of Bauhaus' Daniel Ash, while both "Meow" and the closing "Twelve Bar" are spacy and intriguing. The former introduces an acoustic premise and yearning, Thom Yorke-style vocal to primitive, mashed-up beats, while the latter recalls Bowie (even down to the stylophone, apparently) and is naggingly unsettling and dreamlike in its' execution.
'Filmic' and 'cinematic' are phrases we fall back upon too easily in a world where everyone desires soundbites and ready comparisons, but for once we seem to have been endowed with a band worthy of such descriptions. "Dandelion" positively drips with atmosphere and suggests the discerning will enjoy losing themselves in Exit 52's fascinating world sometime in the near future.
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