This page is supposed to be in a frame. View the proper web site here Owl EP reviews archive

"Every once in a while something special emerges from out of the blue and hits you straight between the eyes like a tornado tearing through a skyscraper. Step forward Cardiff based four piece Attack + Defend, the demolition man's wet dream.

Even with a buzz around them that's gaining more momentum than the start of a honey bee's swarming season, Attack + Defend can't really afford to sit back on their laurels and be swept along on a tidal wave of hope, hype and expectation. And so they haven't...

Instead, the 'Owl EP' exceeds any kind of expectation for a debut release, and if anything, raises the bar somewhat for other artists in the future, as any one of the five songs here could stand alone as an a-side to be reckoned with in its own right.

Lead track 'More' is a Super Furries-meets-The Futureheads quirk rock opus that simply demands attention, as keyboards twist and whirl around Mark Thomas' lyrical observations like The Beta Band on waltzing Matilda's hyperdrive. Things can't - shouldn't - possibly get better. But they do, as the country folk of 'Don't Play With Gypsies In The Wood' with its "I grew up in a land where no one listens..." refrain ringing around your head like a repetitive engine blends into the punk skiffle of '24 Hour City', which basically out-Corals the Merseyside six.

'Posh It Up' is good time punk that would better befit the scenario of a 1920s music hall than the spit drenched confines of The Marquee, while the closing 'Dreamfit' begins with the haunting sound of an owl and treads the well worn path of Beefheart if they'd grown up on cheap white cider and bad hash.

Lovely."

9/10 - Dom Gourlay, drowned in sound
Attack + Defend - Owl EP

"Debut from the three Thomas brothers and Mace. These three brothers from a farm in Hay-On-Wye and a beardo from Devon play us five tracks of bouncing optimism. Opening track "More" has a kinda 80s post punk feel. "Don't Play With Gypsies In The Wood" and "24 Hour City" are on a more poppy sing-a-long tip, with mad keyboard bits. "Posh It Up" is all frantic drums and jerky guitars, and to round it all off there's the jaunty minute-and-a-half pop-rant, "Dreamfit"."
Picadilly records

"Describing themselves as country-tinged electro indie disco, Attack + Defend are one of the more interesting acts to emerge in 2006, if only for their infectious good-time attitude.

Lyrically, Don't Play With The Gypsies In The Wood and 24 Hour City are clumsy, but More fuses the electro and indie admirably while the Kings Of Leon-aping Posh It Up is the real standout."

Herts-essex journal

Written by Ben, powpowpow
Tuesday, 14 March 2006

"This is the debut EP from the Welsh indie rockers, known as Attack + Defend. With speedy drum beats, beeping keyboards and the poetic vocals of Mark Thomas. This EP certainly has a buzz about it from the moment the EP starts to the moment it finishes; there isn't a moment when your interest is lost.

Songs such as 'More' and 'Posh it up' certainly stand out, and form to make strong debut from the trio. There is a slight punk influence in 'Posh it up', and in a strange way it ties in amazingly well.

This is an amazing debut from the Welsh trio, and I recommend you check them out..."

Quote:
"Attack + Defend - Owl EP

Not being David Attenborough, I can't tell you which variety of owl this is peering out from this splendidly packaged disc but I do know good music when I hear it. That's exactly what this record delivers. An exhilarating debut, its five tracks lope gleefully across the musical landscape with no respect for genre, slabs of electro sitting next to spotty indie while lilting alt-country finds itself overlaid by rugged punk harmonies. Following the great British tradition for eccentricity, Attack + Defend draw variously on the languid humour of Ray Davies, the wide boy lyricism of Ian Dury and the scathing acidity of Mark E. Smith. Torchbearers in the same irreverent mould as the Arctic Monkeys and Pete Doherty, the band has produced a record just dripping in shambolic charm - we love it!

8/10 "

Disorrder magazine

"Drunken electro pop rock, accent on rock.Fairly crappy vox, but there's a lot of shit hot rock styling going on You know the deal, snappy, short-yapped vox that any tit could do at a party and the kind of obvious, but coolly fuzz-fucked guitar chords you can slash the air to, especially the endgame of "More". You know, we do love it when students turn nasty, but we love it more when they sting and shuffle beat their way through a Brian Wilson goes Sussex swing-groove like "Don't Play With Gypsies In The Wood". We lied, it's best when they slap-shit out of skiffle with double-cored bass and Lonnie Donnegan beats to shift "Dreamfit"."

Unpeeled

"Attack And Defend develop their public profile with five eclectic tracks.

On this EP, Attack And Defend get to show off their full repertoire of sounds and ideas, from the lead track More (a shiny, sparkly, sleazy warped and danceable shindig on the perils of mass consumption, complete with a woozy organ part) to track five, Dreamfit (a swinging party blues number).

Don't Play With Gypsies slows things right down with its country-tinged guitar twangs, vocalist Mark Thomas sounding like he's trying to keep a 10p piece clenched between his buttocks while he's singing. Then it breaks down into folk techno keyboard fuzz and music for the waltzer.

24 Hour City is the most traditional song on this EP, but even so, A+D's signature phrasing is as strange as ever. Lines that scan are alien to A+D, and that is a good thing: they're unusual, tangential and grin-inducing. "

- James McLaren

"I once witnessed Attack + Defend implode on stage. It was like watching a motorway pile up with plastic toy cars; all drunken stumbles, snapped guitar strings, broken amps and general amateurishness running riot. It was fuckin rubbish/brilliant but had this young Downloader hack grinning from ear-to-ear.

Somewhat regrettably the 'Owl EP' has an air of professionalism about it, but that does nothing to detract from the glory that is this rabble of young Welsh cosmonauts. For this is energetic electro pop let lose in the idea's cupboard and it's a hugely-enjoyable listen. ''Don't Play with Gypsies In The Wood' is the EP's standout track; a mess of Super Furries vision and Delays sunshine sass bound and gagged and put in the middle of a smarting county tune. But it's the jumble of five splendid - and yet massively contrastive - tracks that is this EP's true charm. One listen and trust me, you'll be swept away on the Attack + Defend party bus."

Pete Steel, downloader.co.uk

"Swinging around a climbing-frame of groovy guitar and 70s machine-made noise 'More' is a gurning attack on consumer culture. Meanwhile 'Don't Play with Gypsies in the Wood' is a gentler affair, folky and wistful, oddly sweet; though it tales a stranger turn when the electronics climb on board and goes all instrumental. '24 Hour City' is a marginally bouncy indie-rock survey of the more crappy aspects of city life and closer 'Dreamfit' has that same electro-vibration backing and crunchy/funky guitar but lacks the oomph of the other songs. All tunes are performed with a nonchalant lyrical and vocal slant. Attack+Defend are better than your average electropoppers, plus we'll back anything which has an owl on the cover. "
gigwise

"Most times PR sheets are a tissue of hype, exaggeration and, sometimes, downright lies. But to describe this music as "country-tinged electro in the indie-disco mould" is an eight-word nail/head interface. 'More', a song about mass consumption, is the electro bit of that description, coming on like a poppy Bravery. It's original and dynamic for the first two minutes, which is unfortunate for a three and a half minute song, and it ends with too many keyboards. However 'Don't Play With Gypsies in the Woods' rescues the EP; as a band from Hay-on-Wye, the rural influences kick in but not too much: flutes toot but synths prevent it getting too rustic. 'Posh It Up' is insistent indie-disco, and the conversational chatter on 'Dreamfit', about "being so happy you could burst" sounds like the Nightingales. It's all loose, lo-fi and a touch shambling but with plenty of potential, if they can bring together their currently separate influences into their own single sound."
Ged M, Soundsxp

"Boobytrap spring another surprise with the latest EP from Welsh rock n' roll tooters Attack + Defend on the imaginatively cluttered 'Owl EP'. In the Boobytrap tradition, beeping pacey drumbeats and less than faultless vocals provide oodles of fun on 'More', while pat pat folk poems provide excellent variation with sprinklings of shrilling birdlike synth.

The guys portray every rural bod's first daunting days in the smoke with '24 Hour City' - bluesy with whirling touches - and there's a faltering exploitation of mobile phones and hair straighteners on the pulsating 'Posh It Up' before 'Dreamfit' dares to "shimmy on the dance floor" with a brisk beat that even Girls Aloud wouldn't say no to.

And if five tracks of half mystic, half futuristic blast aren't enough to entertain, there's a pretty sweet picture of the four piece posing with the EP's namesake on the back cover. Friends with birds of prey? Now that's rock n' roll. "

Sin Rowe, Click Music