Bless The Surprise and all who sail in her; today’s uncovered stowaway is Sometree, a band about which this writer knows next to nothing, all information drawn from this seven-inch’s colourful sleeve. (They are Alex, Bernd, Bjorn and Sebastian; they play rock music.) Their dot-DE web address suggests they call Germany home, but the combustive cacophony that blusters its way forth from side A, ‘Iron’, is prime post-hardcore of a late nineties variety. US coastal service issue, guitars chopped ‘til they bleed, vocals honest and stripped of sing/scream cliché. It’s the sort of song that Deep Elm’s Emo Diaries series would have rode a rocking horse to the end of the Earth for; that Revelation Records would have angled their collective ears toward before posting a blank cheque to the other side of the Atlantic.

‘Metaphysics’ uncoils in a similarly dramatic fashion, albeit with wings clipped – here the quartet don’t soar but maintain a steady altitude, as guitars feedback angrily beneath a tar pit of bludgeoned drums. Come the inevitable explosion, where every aspect of the song feels the shock of a thousand volts, the listener is there: hook, line, sinker…

…Sinker being something the good ship The Surprise most certainly isn’t. Welcome Sometree for a little shore leave and expect to be awed into revealing affections thought buried back at the Millennium’s turn.