EP Review: All That Has Ever Been

Will Saunders’ 5-track EP All That Has Ever Been opens with Come On Down, a raucous indie pop tune, either written from the perspective of a child looking up at a balloon as it floats away, or potentially a person who sees a friend who’s constantly out of it. It’s a ripping song; guitars, drums, words and noises all chugging along at around 100 beats a minute, until the wailing guitar feedback finishes.

The second tune, Catch It In Your Mind, is a tad slower and lighter, featuring the first appearance of an acoustic guitar, and right near the end of it, the EP’s title comes out: All That Has Ever Been. This track has an up-tempo drum with other instrumentation playing at half time. There’s a wonderful sense of freedom and chaos in Will Saunders’ music, and it is especially crafted on this tune.

Third tune in, All That I Could Do, is drum machine meets Arabic music; the song sounds like it’s in a very Middle Eastern scale. Like the other tunes on the EP it has many layers, but there’s also space, it’s very cleverly recorded. Lo-Fi yes, 100%, but beautifully recorded.

The fourth tune of five is Fling. Lyrically this track sounds like it was written about a brief relationship. Musically it’s more stripped back with minimum orchestration, the acoustic guitar leads with other instruments gently following. Saunders went all out when it came to the vocal tracks: there are unison voices, harmony tracks, vocal parts that just fade away like an unfinished afterthought. It’s got a lot going on, while not being dense or crowded.

The five song EP ends with its shortest track; Not Here Anymore. At a guess it’s being sung from the viewpoint of someone who’s recently died. It is 1 minute, 50 seconds of two acoustic guitar tracks, one on rhythm, the other melody and a couple of vocal tracks. It is superbly layered, sparse and vulnerable.

This is a wonderful EP. I just want to hear more.