We at TLOBF have a lot to thank Fireworks Night for. Among their most recent achievements, their label Organ Grinder Records helped bring Left With Pictures to us and Firworks Night themselves played TLOBF's Ill Fit club night just recently, which I understand was rather good. Their current offering though, is this new EP (or mini-album, if you like 28 minutes and six songs, it's quite a beefy EP) A Mirror, A Ghost.First up is "You, Holding." One of the first things you notice is the curious, half-spoken vocal style which dominates the album. The song is a haunting affair, a slow descent into a yawning abyss, which gradually and patiently grows in intensity before everything is stripped away again - maybe we reached the bottom?"The Shiver In Your Bones" is much more in-your-face, driven by aggressive, pounding percussion and honky tonk piano. Later, soaring vocals are adopted - "I never loved you, la la la da..." The lyrics mention a carnival, and the song does evoke a kind of creepy, twisted carnival atmosphere as it lurches around.I think that A Mirror, A Ghost (and arguably Fireworks Night in general) is going to be quite divisive. That odd vocal style I mentioned will be loved by some but I can see it being a bit turn-off for others - especially in the long, sparse sections present in songs like "The Fire" and "Down to the Lake", when we're basically alone with it. When the band are at these extremely sparse ebbs, they skirt worryingly close to being genuinely boring, but luckily something more interesting is almost always just around the corner, whether that be a quickening of pace or the introduction of some lovely backing vocals, which are quite a key facet of the sound here.Another splitting factor, I think, will be the quite obtuse lyrics, which are always off-kilter, usually interesting ("hold you one hand at a time") and sometimes raise an eyebrow ("the tube in your mouth, like a fish on a line"). So, a mixed bag then, and one on which the listener's personal prejudices are going to bear heavily. Give Fireworks Night a try - they might just be the thing for you, even if I find them a little alienating. 67%mp3:> Fireworks Night: 'You, Holding'Fireworks Night on MySpace