Nine Black Alps were one of the most promising young acts to appear last year, delivering some truly blistering live performances and a fine debut album in Everything Is. Other bands would milk that debut as much as possible, but rather laudably, Nine Black Alps have chosen to release a 6 track EP featuring rare and previously unreleased 'fan favourites'.
Over The Ocean, previously only available as the B-side to Cosmopolitian but a staple of their live performances, is fast and furious and possessed of a truly great, melodic chorus. It was apparently the first song the band wrote together, and as such, is rather staggering. Llana Song is equally good, striking that rare balance between being monstrously heavy and immensly tuneful, while Attraction and Never Coming Down show off the band's lesser known quieter, acoustic style.
The whole package is rounded off by two live recordings, Never Coming Down and Coldhearted, which makes this a compulsory purchase for all Nine Black Alps fans. Glitter Gulch isn't a case of the record company scraping the bottom of the barrel to fleece fans out of more money - rather, this makes a nice stop gap until the second album is released. It can't come soon enough.
