Catfish are as confusing as their band name is bad. Whilst some strange attempt to justify their moniker is made at the band’s website (which loosely involves cats and what seems to be the slaying of), the name ultimately conjures up the vision of a clueless high school punk band. Yet what we have here is not too far short of the Chemical Brothers meets a heavy guitar riff wrapped around the Star Wars sound effects package!

With seven short tracks, Catfish successfully manage to throw absolutely everything at the listener – inevitably this involves sounds both pleasing and irritating – but nonetheless intriguing if not always enjoyable.

“Maturum Est” is an epic and misleading introduction to an EP that afterwards tends to whittle past quickly, whilst “Handbreaker” is a sort of time-warped Mission Impossible theme, packed full of electric whistles and nuances. “Minute Mad” appears to be completely absent of sanity and “Draka” appears to be the sound of passing vehicles in a tunnel whilst two people repeatedly say ‘Draka’ and ‘Meow’!

It’s incredibly difficult to describe Catfish without instantly making their music sound completely rubbish, yet this really isn’t the case at all. Sure, this will certainly be an acquired taste, but then perhaps it’s worth mentioning, that Matt Bayles (Isis, Mastodon, Pearl Jam) is currently talking with the band about producing some tracks.

“The Teaser” might be electro-rock gone mad, but it’s far from electro-rock gone bad.