(Cover art here with the back and inlay via the respective links)

As I write this in September 2008 I realise that it's been something like ten months since the last Enough Rope record, the acoustic 'Don'ts', and about thirteen since the last electric one, which by Enough Rope standards represents a pretty staggering drought. Much of the reason for this revolves around a four-month period from April to August where I was evicted from my house and consequently didn't have access to a guitar or any of the songs I'd recorded. The first disc of 'A Trick' was finished about a week before that happened in April, while the second was done a couple of weeks after my triumphant return.

It's tempting to try and construct some fascinating story around the two discs and what they represent, but you probably deserve better than that kind of patronising bullshit. So, the first disc really follows in the footsteps of 'One Mistake After Another' and 'The Weekendist', with a mixture of the punchiness of the former with the longform drone of the latter. The title track is my favourite here, a rumbling and slightly disquieting thing which skulks around moodily outside your house. The closer 'Redeemed' starts out freeform and goes through a propulsive and kind of upbeat phase before finishing on a melancholy tip, while 'Sink Teeth' is built off an odd looped 'beat' and a wonky bassline.

The meandering 'Idle Threats' and more brief 'What You Can't See' are the pop tunes this time out, and there's loads of strange goodies on here, including the somewhat incongruous blast of noise in the Simpsons-referencing 'Thrillhouse'. No-one reads this, but if you do you'll realise that reading this is somewhat pointless and you'd be better off just clicking the mp3 links to the right.

Anyway, the second disc came about rather more by accident than design. I was waiting for an Everybody's Golf World Tour patch to download onto my PS3 so I could play with the novelty Kratos, but it was taking so long I decided to plug in the old Marshall pedal and spend the next, ooh, 43 minutes and 43 seconds goofing around with some improvised nonsense, which turned out pretty well. Good for lying in bed to, I find.

So there it is, we're off and running for this year, and hopefully this won't be the last you see of Enough Rope in '08.