ELEVEN EP
Six (Baker Remix)

Church Of The Drive Thru' Elvis 
But The Trains Run On Time 
Six (Album Edit) 
What Its Like To Be Hated
Being A Girl (Parts 1 & 2 Live) 
Television (Live)
 
Mansun's eleventh EP hit the British shops on the 1st of Febraury and entered the charts at number 16 a week later. The EP features some of the best tracks Mansun have ever put out, including brilliant live versions of 'Being A Girl' and 'Televeision' from the 1998 gig at Brixton Academy. Two versions of the song Six were included - a radio friendly pop-remix for the Radio and the version which led Mansun's second album. The pop-version, remixed by Arthur Baker shortens the song to under 4 minutes, reducing it to a simple but extremely catchy tune.

The album version is an epically long track, showing both the wide vocal ability of Paul Draper (droppin the falsetto being a great success) and the amasing guitar talent that is Dominic Chad. Starting of very poppy, it descends into heavy rock, before swimming up through a wealth of sound effects into fucked up funked up electronica cum pschodelia and seemingly effortlessly back into a  pop finish. But when is that finish? The track chops and changes direction at the scariest of moments and pulls it off nonetheless. My favourite bit has to be about 6 minutes through where all hell has broke loose and they start to mess with the vocals, and the lines 'And you see, how they shiver to conformity, did you see? The way I cower to authority! And my life, it's a series of compromises anyway - It's a sham...' become brilliantly funky.

There are three completely new tracks on 11EP: 'Church Of The Drive Thru Elvis' is a superb acoustic song about a society enforced inferiority complex, with Paul singing and Chad on backing vocals, and the nice line, 'You take life better than me, my wheelchair rolls into the sea'. 'But The Trains Run On Time' is quite a wacky Bowie-esque which seems to reflect a lot of the bands personality - Chad's habit of 'lining things up', Paul's insomnia, etc. It seems to be about the drive for the unimportant things in life - 'You need a better car to make you [more] valid than you are' - whilst neglecting the important, and ignoring the consequences 'taking sweets from childrens hands'.

However my favourite track on the EP has to be the superbly funky bass of 'What Its Like To Be Hated', a brilliantly strong and dark track which is not depressing but is definitely angry. A printing error meant early lyrics which never made this version were printed in the sleeve - so the correct lyrics can be found on Mansun Heaven. The track is just amasing in it's pure clashing of emotions - a bitter verse full of swearing and a lighter chorus are played simulataeously at the end, and the effect is immense. The verses are not actually sung but just growled very cooly - oh heck it's unexplainable, but easily as good a b-side as the classic favourites 'Drastic Sturgeon', 'Skin Up Pin Up' and 'Everyone Must Win'. The only shame is it will be quite hard to do live - but God I hope they do!