I am forever baffled by how the ears work. I listened to Candythief’s MySpace page a while back and was not just mildly unimpressed, I thought it was a pretty poor effort all round. Quite why, on buying this mini-album at Homegame last week, I suddenly think it’s brilliant is beyond me. How the fuck does the brain do that? And why I decided to spend a fiver on an EP by a group I thought I didn’t like is yet another question, but beer can be a perverse mistress at times.

Now that I have seen the light, what are we listening to here? Well it sits in very similar, dramatically string-doused territory to a couple of other bands you’ve read about on these pages: The Moulettes and Paris Motel. They’re perhaps a little rougher and more guttural than these bands, but they can indeed produce the loveliness when called upon.

Still, the Paris bordello aesthetic persists, reinforced by the fact that Diana occasionally sings in French, although when she sings in English the clarity of her accent makes for an odd juxtaposition. Similar to Amy May perhaps, there seems to be a meeting of French cabaret and a particular type of clear as a bell Englishness which, frankly, brings a little weakness of knee to a certain amphibious gentleman around these parts.

It’s not all dramatically dark fiddle scrapings though, as the last few tracks take a fairly novel detour – Number Five into an eighties-sounding folk-pop and then She Can Do No Harm into French-language electro-pop splendour in the mid-nineties style. Quite where that came from is a little beyond me, but there it is, and it’s surprisingly really rather good. Even closer Satellite is more pop than carnival noir, but the gorgeous strings do make a farewell appearance.

There is no actual purchase link, but swing by MySpace and drop ‘em a line and I’m sure you can work something out. If you are disappointed I will give you your money back and call you a dickhead.

Candythief – Junk
Candythief – Entente Cordiale