Minotaur

The Clientele are on such a hot streak that even a minor release like this eight-song, 27-minute EP are worthy of note. Indeed, given that the Londoners are masters of the miniature, it only makes sense to think of their many EPs as being just as important as their full-length releases. This is only one of several ways in which the Clientele resemble '80s cult heroes Felt, and in fact, Minotaur strongly recalls that group's idiosyncratic take on indie guitar pop. Like Felt's singer-songwriter Lawrence Heyward, frontman Alasdair MacLean favors a tremulous, breathy vocal style and fluid guitar work both strongly reminiscent of the quieter side of Television's Tom Verlaine, a comparison most notable on the title track, which vacillates between mournful and ecstatically beautiful. Elsewhere, a pair of typically lovely minor-key pop songs, "Strange Town" and "Nothing Here Is What It Seems," bracket a doomy piano instrumental and a spooky spoken-word monologue with atmospheric sound effects. These are the sort of oddball tangents that Felt loved to indulge in on their shorter efforts, and it's a kind of playful experimentation that not enough pop bands are fearless enough to engage in these days.