SLOW RIOT FOR NEW ZERO KANADA E.P.

A release just as central to the Godspeed catalogue as their debut album - if anything, it's a marked improvement on it - the Slow Riot EP consists of Moya, an instrumental track, before we get to the real treat, Blaise Bailey Finnegan III, in which the band's music is accompanied by more extracts from a very unusual man-on-the-street interview which what seems to be a rather cranky individual.

The fact that the poem he recites actually consists of Iron Maiden lyrics from the Blaze Bayley era prompts the question of whether the interview is real and BBF3 is a liar as well as a crank, or whether the entire thing is fake, but either way it's a thought-provoking encounter, particularly considering the band's political views. Its inclusion seems to be an act of self-criticism and self-reflection on their part; can their own opposition to government policies thrive by itself, or will they invariably be associated with people like Finnegan, who proudly describes how he made an embarrassing and juvenile spectacle of himself in traffic court?

The thought-provoking nature of the interview is supported perfectly by the music, just as the found audio snippets on King Crimson's Discipline album synced brilliantly with the musical backing. On the whole, Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada is an absolutely perfect bite-sized introduction to Godspeed's musical universe, and a great gateway drug for post-rock in general with it.