OPERAHOUSE - CHANGE IN NATURE EP

Currently recording their debut album with Embrace’s Richard McNamara producing, Operahouse here offer up four distinctly non-Embrace sounding taster tracks - think Muse’s Showbiz days, or Canadian alt-rockers Our Lady Peace’s concept album of pseudo-profound sci-fi claptrap Spiritual Machines. Operahouse share both bands’ predilection for uber-emotive vocal inflections that at times skirt too close to histrionics for comfort, as well as a hefty amount of pomposity that distinguishes the four-piece from their more grounded contemporaries but lumbers them with a faint air of Placebo. Title track Change in Nature is the definite highlight, though Red Hats for the Masses comes close by sounding like 90s oddballs Mansun, but neither track does enough to push the band into the limelight quite yet. [Chris Buckle]