This Liverpool quartet began playing nine years ago. Visitations is their fourth album, but it’s a fresh start in the direction of absolute gold. They released their debut album in 2000, titled Internal Wrangler which landed them a tour with Radiohead. In 2002 they came out with Walking With Thee, and then in ’04 with Winchester Cathedral, a gloom and doom record teetering on the edge of scary. On the other hand, Visitations has plenty of mood setters, and some of their most optimistic lyrics to date. Album opener, “Family,” features fuzz to the guitars and bounce to the vocals and drums. “Animal/Human,” to which no comparisons can be drawn is far from familiar. One wearied voice begins the song, it is joined by another, the beats drop out, snaps come in, twitchy funk riffs intervene, a Yiddish — inspired loop played on accordion closes out… and it makes perfect sense. Guitars are heavy, voices uneasy, and the chimes and guiros are out in full force. The toms, which the drummer frequently lays into, perhaps overstay their welcome, but on the whole keep things firmly in place. The album ends with “The Cape,” returning the listener full circle to the southern static guitars heard on the album opener. Don’t be surprised if you feel like letting it play another time through.

I give this EP a 8.5 out of 10 on Carl’s, less callous than Pitchfork but more rational than RollingStone, scale of review.