EP Review : The Chap - Even Your Friend EP
- Written by Antonio Tzikas
Not much of an EP, Even Your Friend consists of the title track, a B-side and two remixes. What a rip - didn’t this used to be called a maxi single? How dare they. I’m guessing you might be new to The Chap, so let’s just see what they sound like shall we??First up is lead track ‘Even Your Friend‘, a slice of kooky, jaunty indie consisting of some purposefully well pronounced female vocals doing that very-short-very-sharp talking thing that was popular a few years back, think Kate Nash from Surrey and you’ll be in the area. Then the chorus kicks in with a different vocal, sounding tacked on and disjointed. The track is all too reminiscent of that quirky/twee indie sound that decided to become big in, and ruin, the summer of 2007. Never again.
It’s a different story for B-side ‘Friendo For Life’, the sound of which is such a contrast to the lead track it could easily be another band. The band used translation sites to get a Spanish version of their lyrics that they sing on the song, and the result is by far the best track on the EP. A beautiful and mellow song crackling with a light fuzz and with an almost choral vocal, ‘Friendo for Life‘ would have been the better choice for the single. Yeah, it’s not traditional single material, nor will it be filling any dance floors but the game has changed and that doesn't matter any more - chillwave anyone?
As for the remixes, one comes from Teengirl Fantasy and the other from Ghostape, both are of ‘Even Your Friend’ but neither sound anything at all like the original version, a minimal, spacey theme runs throughout them but they're average at best.
Having given the EP a few spins, I’m still none the wiser as to what The Chap really sound like - the band on display here seem to be veering toward poor outdated indie, but also have the potential to produce some beautifully chilled out, vaguely psychedelic brilliance. We’ll have to see.