Former Mansun Paul Draper returned earlier this year with EP One. He is back again with, yep, you guessed it, EP Two. here's our track by track review:
Friends Make The Worst Enemies
Draper’s ability to make grandiose anthems sound twisted and brooding has not diminished one iota. This EP opener will drag you in into his world of distrust head first and scream in your face until you understand that he “feels like my life is imploding”.
The way he tempers bravado with helplessness creates a unique world light at the end of the tunnel doesn’t exist.
Some Things Are Best Left Unsaid
The tender, yet wayward vocal begins to forge a calmer path following the intense storm that is ‘Friends Make The Worst Enemies’. With this clarity though, comes a bout of regret through the simple yet damming line:
“I wish I had told you when we first met”
This line, like the song, is so simple and so effective. Commuters the world over will be glued to the landscape drifting by them out the window pondering the whys and hows of secrets they should never have kept.
Don’t You Wait, It Might Never Come
For those who grew up with Mansun in the mid-90s, they will undoubtedly have their younger selves and dreams sound tracked by the ambition and hopefulness embodied by Oasis’ ‘Live Forever’.
Now their youth is behind them, a sense of last chance saloon is something that will appeal to those whose lives have not panned out as planned. That’s where this track comes in. Four minutes of frantic desperate rock n roll spew out of this last roll of the dice and it doesn’t disappoint.
Friends Make The Worst Enemies (Acoustic)
So often, acoustic versions of the lead track are just filler. Not here. Draper’s solemn version of the opener adds much needed sonic ballast to this delightfully unsteady EP.
Furthermore, the softer vocal allows the lyrics to sound more like a tale from a deeply wounded elder statesman full of resentment.