When I was loading the Harpies into my iPod for review, the word metal dropped into the genre tab. Now this worried me: I've never understood it. Maybe it's a London thing; there were never any metal heads at school, so I wasn't exposed to the music at an early enough age. To me, grunting vocals and bludgeoning backing produce mirth instead of, well, I've never been sure of how metal moves people, what emotions it provokes. It just reduces me to giggles and a wry smile.

To my surprise this didn't sound like metal at all, at least not as I perceived it from the brief hints I've caught flicking between music channels on the TV. The clanging rhythm sounds like a jam between a wired The Rapture and a beta version of drum and base. All big city hustle, black cabs and underground trains. The vocals are mixed low in the mix; an an ochre hushed whisper. Maybe I'm wrong about this metal lark... but then after thirty seconds someone lets the Slipknot fan loose. There's a series of screams and grunts that I assume are meant to be scary but make me laugh aloud. Then the scream gets locked away for another thirty seconds before its unleashed again. I guess its an attempt to show light and shade, but it sounds like one of those mad Kid606 remixes.

The whole thing is so schizophrenic I am amazed it hasn't been sectioned for its own good. Tucked away as the last track on the EP is the radio edit, stripped away of all but one of the screams and turned down the volume and distortion. It remakes the song like an Evanescence track with the religious imagery removed. I guess real metal fans would see it as a sell out. Me, I think it's much improved.

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