Good God! It's a band who're clearly influenced by the Beatles! Like, you can audibly pick out the Abbey Road/Maxwell's Silver Hammer, quirky-serial-killer-era-Fab-Four inspiration. Bloody hell - it's as if it weren't all-but-illegal to lay claim to any inspiration more historical than the Strokes! Santa Carla are bold Liverpudlians indeed, to stake out their territory so plainly in their hometown's musical roots. I'm also picking up a possible (ironic?) reference to Kate Bush in Catcher in the Rye, and a hint of strawberry and musk ox...

But enough of the influence-divining wine tasting - let's get down to the nitty-gritty business of assessing the band in hand. Statistically speaking, this is 50% a fine EP and 50% utter bobbins. The less impressive half stems from the slower songs, which perform their epic swooping harmonising thing in a manner which is possibly supposed to be tongue in cheek but which is mainly sickly-nutrasweet, and which has the same bitter, artificial aftertaste. Bugger that for a lark. The faster songs, on the other hand, are OTT in all the right ways: head over heels homicidal love affairs about mass murderers, twisted passion and orphans being boiled alive like lobsters. Sproingy keyboards, whirlpool guitars and gun-shot vocals delivered in a clearly rather self-aware manner, but getting away with the smugness because they're just so bloody good at making this self-reverential noise. We like that, we like it a lot. Check this CD out, but only play the first two songs. And if you choose to ignore our wise advice, don't come crying to us afterwards. OK?