This is a review of "The Road EP" recorded by Western Suburbs. The review was written by Richard Garnett in 2001.

Western Suburbs have a very familiar sound and one that can surely only work in their favour, emulating current indie scene darlings such as Lowgold and Grandaddy. Title track 'The road' is excellent and has a silky sound to it. The repetitive outro of "Don't turn, don't turn your back and..." has a particularly infectious quality. The only criticism on this track is that just as you think the song is fading out at about 4 mins 22 it fades back in and you start to think...uh oh studio boredom here we go..."what does this button do engineer?" NO don't do it, let the song do the talking!!! Right got that off my chest. But it does get me especially when the song stands up so well.

Track 2 - Fireflies was "recorded at home by joss" according to the inlay. You don't say! The production quality drops dramatically and unfortunately the first thing that suffers is the dynamics and after 2 mins the "skip to the next track" finger twitch has started.

Last track Keep on truckin' has more lilting qualities that makes it a suitable third track but again not standing up to the quality of the opener. What Western Suburbs might have been better doing was calling this release "The Road" and not "The Road EP" as you then wouldn't feel so robbed by the dullness of tracks 2 and 3 and would accept track 1 for what it is, which is an excellent song.

I won't quite be moving to the western suburbs just yet, I could do with seeing a few more properties but I've heard its very nice and well kept.