He Was Eaten By Owls – We Shall Oscillate Like A Pendulum (2014)

We Shall Oscillate Like A Pendulum from London trio He Was Eaten By Owls provides a taster of the sort of post-math we can expect from their undeniably epic LP to be, Chorus 30 From Blues For The Hitchiking Dead. Aptly titled, the double B-side holds two tracks almost at odds with each other, and reflect two very different sides of the band.

After the prolonged ambient drones of ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’, the second track ‘The Tupenny Rush And The Penny Dreadful’ rolls abruptly into life with highly angular melodies and luscious crookedness. Acoustic guitars and percussion scurry around unpredictably but still retain a soulful coherency, something that great noise rock bands like Cheval De Frise were renowned for.

Short but all-encompassing, We Shall Oscillate Like A Pendulum really does, well, oscillate like a pendulum. It juxtapositions two instrumental pieces with very dissimilar styles but, together, they form a strange coalescence. Whether this was intended by the band is unclear (after all, they are b-sides), but if this is any reflection of what Chorus 30 is going to sound like when it is released this summer, well, by golly…