Cowboyy - Epic The Movie

“So many mullets in the room, I can barely even breathe / And no I’m not a fucking black midi rip off,” despairs cowboyy vocalist Stanley Powell on ‘Algorithmic’ as some noodly riffs continue in the background before the punchline: “And who’s doing guitar solos? Not you!” If a decent way to figure out what you are is to first ascertain what you’re not, then the young quartet’s debut EP knows that, first and foremost, it does not want to be lumped in as another post-punk, post-Windmill band, no thank you sir. True, Stanley is a fan of the omnipresent sprechgesang (the garbled vocal of opener ‘Gmaps’ admittedly calling to mind a touch of the Geordie Greeps - soz), but that’s largely where the comparisons end. Instead, ‘Tetris’ is as mathy as the game it speaks of; the aforementioned ‘Algorithmic’ is full of scrappy, OTT guitars and Art Brut-style hilarity, while closer ‘Nothing’ brings to mind Los Campesinos! at their most slow-burning.