Vessels: "Meatman, Piano Tuner, Prostitute f/ Stuart Warwick"

February’s the most depressing time of the year, without doubt. No Bank Holidays, Valentine’s cards, the last of the Christmas chocolates gone. Vessels have studied this and, stuck with the fact their sophomore Helioscope now comes fixed with a Feb ’11 release date, are doing their best to release early teasers in order to build up some love. “Meatman, Piano Tuner, Prostitute,” fully streamable and three months early, is Vessels’ answer to the studio audience warm-up man, the sap who does lengths prior to transmission with a placard that reads “CLAP” or “SSHH.” Except this particular sap has style: the intro to “Meatman” is a warm-up in itself, sparkling like John Hughes movie credits and promising maximum comedy/drama. Martin Teff then works in some bursts of organ and starts the bell loop that runs through the tune; all five-and-a-half rhythmic minutes of it. Never underestimate the power of a click track—it’s essential in securing people’s interest. And three months is time to build interest aplenty, so much so that fans might get tunnel vision.

Musically, “Meatman” is no great departure from the quintet’s thrashing formula (make that a sextet if you include guest Stuart Warwick), but the production here is a hundred times sleeker, making their White Fields and Open Devices (2008) debut sound like post-rock played on wax disc. Warwick’s voice enters at Thom Yorke level, the computer tinges and braying effects adding instant OK Computer (1997) memories (you can imagine “Meatman” being mis-tagged as Radiohead if this was ten years ago and the band had just leaked onto Napster).

However, anyone who’s heard the White Fields album will know Vessels can whip up a storm of their own, and Warwick’s wail of “On Rhode Island / The unknown kiss forever” sees a storm slowly pour from his voicebox. By the time he’s howling, “Don’t shy away / Don’t move away,” like your bravery depends on your postcode, the instruments—Tom Evans’ guitar in particular—have come loose from their click-track, sliding from indie angst to bomb blast. I’m not sure if Johnny Greenwood would ever attack his guitar like that—it’s hard to go berserk after playing something beautiful—but then his band never got whisked away to Dallas to record in the home of John Congleton. No wild parties/meals with U2 in the Fortune 500 district, Vessels. It’ll be three months before you can unchain your egos and begin to jeopardise visas.