Outblinker – The Remains of Water Peck EP

A three-track sneak peek of the album due out later in the year, the latest EP from the Glasgow five-piece balances precariously between the ecumenical and the heretical, as if having spirited themselves away to Orkney, and a medieval church with evil Fuck Buttons/Blanck Mass mastermind Ben Power in the High Priest role, has tilted the mood towards M.R. James territory.

There’s something intrinsically unsettling to The Remains of Water Peck; a triptych of slyly dramatic electro-psych motifs pulled through a series of ever tighter apertures, track titles referencing Ghostbusters and Freddie Mercury’s birth name pepper proceedings with the slightest of pop cultural winks.

Bulky chords drift in and out of focus, the percussion subtle, Power’s production (and, by extension, his influence) offering a neat counterpoint to the momentum – by the time the eleven minutes of closer Ernest Becker (named after the American anthropologist) expires, there’s a genuine sheen of perspiration in the listening; if only attending church was always this enlightening.