How We Are

Although Bombay Bicycle Club’s second EP surfaced in 2007, the London quartet’s adoration for bygone indie rock helped give *How We Are* a sound more in touch with 1997. “How Are You” opens as Jack Steadman’s voice quivers and shakes with endearing emotional urgency similar to Conor Oberst’s young inflections on the very first Bright Eyes album. The melodic and mid-tempo “Ghost” — the only song here to show up on the band’s debut album *I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose* — jangles and chimes with distorted guitars that resonate on slightly detuned tones, like those heard on Pavement’s *Brighten the Corners*. Bombay Bicycle Club even flirt with post-rock progressions on the opening of “Maybe More,” recalling *TNT*- era Tortoise before Steadman’s Oberst-esque trills turn to a more confident and flirty approach, à la Devendra Banhart. “Pedestal” bookends the EP with driving guitars, pedaling rhythms and Steadman steadying his singing with more control, hinting at the voice he would find and utilize on his band’s first album.