I've raved about The Paper Chase a lot on here already, and you can read about their other records here. There's something about their very unique style that I absolutely adore, but one of the many other things I enjoy is how they made each record feel like a whole, rather than a collection of songs. This EP certainly has that feeling, even though the themes are maybe less obvious than their other albums.
Cntrl-Alt-Delete-U only has five songs (and an amazing title) but they're all great, and there's no messing around. The songs feel fuller and more crazed than the ones on the band's other records, but maybe that's a result of the fact it's an EP - they had to squeeze all the ideas in. There's barely room for anything else in This is the Return of the Don't Talk Backs. I like it a lot, but The Paper Chase have long been one of my favourite bands so I was probably always going to. About halfway through Who Can Deny How Delicious it Tastes? these haunting string appear and fade in and out throughout the rest of the second half, which finishes with the epic ...The Unopened Email to God, possibly one of my favourite Paper Chase songs. The strings reappear even more prominently and carry the lengthy second half of the song whilst John rants about the sun. If all this wasn't good enough, the record ends with a man's voice explaining his hatred for the sun finally finding a locked groove in the vinyl with the line "I hate the sun" on repeat for infinity. I have a few records that end with locked grooves, but this is by far the finest (not to mention the difficultly of pressing the record so the last groove was exactly long enough; I have no idea how you go about planning such a thing).
Aside from a few albums I only have on cd, this completes the Paper Chase back-catalogue for me. When I've got a bit more money floating around I plan to see if I can pick up the missing vinyl because it'll be lovely to have the complete collection of one of my favourite bands.
Format: 12"
Tracks: 5
Cost: Gift, new
Bought: Gift
When: 25/12/05
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no
