The Half Rabbits
3 Songs

I don't know what it is about the city of Oxford but aside from having visions of politicians' sons in boater hats reading the whole of St John's epistles in Latin whilst queuing for a game of croquet, I've always felt there was something deeply suspicious going on musically too - a Yorke-ian conspiracy perhaps? (Can anyone remember The Unbelievable Truth? No. Good).

What we have here are three songs by Oxford four piece The Half Rabbits, and while there is no doubting that the spirit of Radiohead probably lies somewhere in their make-up, '3 Songs' owes more to the eccentric English songwriting of Blur and the complicated rhythms of System Of A Down than anything their fellow homeboys have ever bestowed upon us.

In singer/songwriter Michael Weatherburn, The Half Rabbits have their own modern day Syd Barrett, a Bowie for the Reality TV generation whose lucid tones light up the gentle melody of 'Spooked' and turn it into 'The Man Who Fell To....Abingdon' accordingly.

Whilst I'm not too struck on the band's name - probably because I'm unsure if the 'Half' refers to sawing some poor bunny in two or some bizarre cross-breeding process only performed in Didcot - but there's no mistaking that if they continue to knock out such haunting moments as the aforementioned 'Spooked' or 'How Right You Are', their time will come pretty soon.