FEATURE/SLOWCOACHES "Tourists" split EP

     Two UK trios united in a frayed and gauzy take on fried fidelity, a mutual admiration for Wire's Pink Flag and having a band member in common, take a side each to slather the ears in a exuberant DIY buzz.

     From London, Feature's (who include Sauna Youth's Jen Calleja in it's line up) two originals here, "Wisdom Teeth" and "Tourism Fiction", have my brain wanting to cite something like giving Slowdive a couple sticks of dynamite to rid them over the overdone and unneeded orchestral adornments and make things way more straight forward. The former is a down-stroked grungy grinder that finds an overall white knuckled darkness being pushed away from melodies allowing some sunlight to come through and the latter is choppy shoegazed tinged punk and loaded with head swimming harmonies. 
     Their take on on Wire's "Mannequin" stays somewhat faithful to the original's intention but at the same time gives it a different breathing space as well as tweaking the perception of the songs initial intent was for some.

     Though Leeds via Nottingham's Slowcoaches are the other side of a same sort of coin, they come at you at a much more panicked feeling. Topped off by bassist Heather Perkins (who is also in Feature) just the right discontention for punk rock vocals, the band's "Surface Observations" set off from a basement launch pad launch with high strung dose of rat poison noise pop meets Burger Records indie rock, give it a good kicking (such as the drummer pushing it all to go faster.) "Raw Dealing" keeps this manic feeling going.
     For their take on a Wire song they try "Ex-Lion Tamer" on for size and after giving a few alterations they find that it's a great fit.
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