Meursault: William Henry Miller pt. I & II

It's not often that I dig out the ol' vinyl player. If fact, being the fresh faced youth I am, the world of vinyl is one of which I have only a cursory knowledge. Anytime I want to enjoy my (admittedly meagre) 7" collection I have to drag my dad's old Pioneer PL-112D turntable out of the attic...

But it does appear that the 7" is still alive and well. An old flatmate of mine had quite an impressive collection - all released in the last few years - and most singles seem to get a 7" release alongside the newer formats. These two singles from Song, by Toad Records are available exclusively as vinyl (not counting digitally, which surely doesn't count these days). The band behind this pair of singles is Meursault, already an Eaten by Monsters favourite owing to their fantastic debut LP, Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues.

Now I gather that William Henry Miller is something of a live favourite for hardcore Meusault fans, but I must admit that when it was finally released (on last years Nothing Broke EP) I wasn't all that taken with it. To be honest, I wasn't that taken with the whole EP; I enjoyed it, for sure, but having never seen the band live and getting to know them through their album, the change of direction (from dense electronic soundscapes with a furious energy to a slower, more contemplative acoustic sound) wasn't what I was looking for. In the months following it's release Nothing Broke has certainly grown on me, but in my opinion these two new singles mark a welcome return to the more "produced"^[1] sound of Pissing/Kissing. In fact, the b-sides (The Dirt and the Roots and A Few Kind Words respectively) are the same cuts that were used on the album.

And now William Henry Miller Pt. II - a track that sounded decidedly like filler on Nothing Broke - is now the stand out track of both these singles; a feat made doubly impressive when you consider that A Few Kind Words (the Pt. II b-side) was one of my favourite tracks on the album, which was in turn one of my Top 10 Albums of 2008. And Pt. I has undergone a caterpillar/butterfly rebirth as well! The word on the street is that Meursault are on the brink of writing/recording a new album, and if that's true then I really can't wait.