Album Review

Spring Offensive – A Stutter And A Start

• 11th Apr 2011

Oxford indie quartet Spring Offensive don’t usually do things in the normal fashion. Their last release was a “mega-single”: a fourteen minute long concept song. And before that there was an acoustic EP that was only available as a download for one week.

But today’s new single, A Stutter and a Start, is more of a conventional single.

The song itself is a gentle tale of someone spending hours freezing in a car on the side of the road, making excuses rather than facing confrontation with a lover waiting alone in a restaurant. It’s about the breakdown of a car and the breakdown of a relationship.

The track is slow paced to begin, the guitars subtly backing the almost spoken vocal. The protagonist finds reasons to stay in the vehicle, but argues unconvincingly that he is not in control. The tempo builds as he finally admits that he should have talked things out with his partner before the song ends abruptly leaving us wondering whether he ever overcomes his lethargy.

Also included in the release are b-side The Well, a dark and atmospheric song that builds towards a dramatic conclusion, and an upbeat remix of earlier release Abacus Rex. It’s a nice package of three quite different songs.

There is a slight twist to the single though. The physical version includes the names of those who donated money to the band in return for downloading the previous EP. And the artwork comes in black and white, complete with coloured pencils so you can make your copy unique.

A new video for the single has been released today, and it is posted here on Glasswerk.