My love for the EP is undiminished. Some of my favourite records ever have been EPs. The Wildhearts always understood the form, Silver Sun too, and even Bon Jovi tucked some of their best moments away on them. There is something about the whole thing when it is done right. No filler, no wandering off, just a band getting in, making their point and getting out again before the kettle has boiled.
So the fact this is called “1994” immediately takes me back. I started my first job in October of that year, and every lunchtime I’d head to the record shop where the conversation usually went something like: “Alright And, here, you’ll like this. If you do, pay for it tomorrow.” It was a brilliant time to be obsessed with music, and Final Coil know exactly what they are doing by planting their flag there.
Phil Stiles and his gang, augmented here by Therapy? drummer Graham Hopkins, which is enough for bonus points on its own, reckon that “sometimes you have to go back to go forward” and as such they have looked back into their own past. More to the point, they have looked back to an era when alternative rock, metal and everything in between felt dangerous, exciting and properly alive.
The opener “Instant Fix” offers instant gratification. Indeed, you can imagine Therapy? doing this. It is scrappy, catchy and laser-guided, a perfect window into this world. Everything about it hits quickly and leaves a mark.
“Narcissist” comes in with similar intent, if a little more groove. There is a touch of Alice In Chains about it, but it still carries that wonderful 90s sloganeering. “God he hates me, but can’t erase me,” spits Stiles, and it sticks straight away.
“Playing Games” broods a little like early Feeder and has a sublime melody running right through it, which makes it a real highlight. It is the sort of song that reminds you Final Coil have never been short on ideas, only here they frame them in a way that feels leaner, harder and more immediate.
They save the best for last, though. Six and a bit of the 17 minutes this takes belong to the brilliant “Woke”. Ambitious and angular, and even prog in its fluidity, it is all jagged edges and intent. You imagine this is exactly what the band had in mind when they first started talking about making a record that reconnected them with what lit the fuse in the first place.
This is Final Coil stripping things back without losing any of what makes them special. It is shorter, sharper and far more direct than the big conceptual records, but it is no throwaway stopgap. Instead, it finds the band plugging themselves back into the music that lit the fuse in the first place and coming out the other side with something urgent, loud and alive. In other words, this is not nostalgia for the sake of it. It is Final Coil reminding you that underneath all the grand ideas and scope, they can still hit hard when they want to.
RATING 8.5/10
