Standout track “2 in 24″ rips and rolls open this EP from Minneapolis based group Artifact Shore. The elements are simple but effective: slashed guitars, chorused vocals and robust electronic interventions placed with enough care to prevent songs becoming too predictably song-like. The mid-paced title track dwells in the same twilight world of broken melody and restrained vocals as Sonic Youth. The even slower “Insight and Action” is somnambulant and festers with malign intent, while the high-plucked bass and heavily echoed vocals of “Stupid Coma” distinctly recall Joy Division. Closer “On the Banks of Black” is a monochrome dirge more at home in the mill buildings of Manchester than Minneapolis. While the influences may be out in the open, Artifact Shore handle them with deft confidence and make them their own, and Fun Is Near an assured release.”
- Nick Southgate