Medium High

The 1900s' album from 2007, Cold & Kind, was a finely constructed and richly emotional record that drew from their heroes (Belle & Sebastian, the Left Banke, and the Kinks, to name a few) but added plenty of their own soul and inspiration. As they began pondering a follow-up, it seems the band decided some housecleaning was in order, and the Medium High EP was the result. The disc is a combination stopgap/summing-up that's made up of redone version of songs from Cold & Kind, outtakes, and newly recorded versions of songs the bandmembers wrote in their early days of being together. It's fairly filler-free (the pretty instrumental "Gay Peace" aside) and will keep their fans happy as they wait for new material. Best of all, it makes sense as a record and doesn't sound like a bunch of tossed-together odds and sods. The highlights are the songs they recovered from their past; "Making Love in the Summertime" is a lovely, breezy ode to exactly what the title says, with some of the group's most relaxed and charming vocals to date; "A Will in Firm Fashion" has a nice laid-back, soulful sound and careful arrangement; and "Collections" probably should have been on Cold & Kind — if it had, it would have been one of the best things there, as the lilting melody and quietly propulsive rhythm give the song the feel of a hit record perfect for daytime radio play. Neither of the two songs the band revisits is exactly an improvement over the original, but both are at least interesting: "When I Say Cohen" replaces the bouncy AM pop sound of "When I Say Go" with a haunted, violin-heavy arrangement that highlights the slightly creepy nature of the lyrics, and "A Face I Know" takes the already dreamy, drifting feel of "Supernatural" and gives it a heavy backbeat and fuzzy guitars. Only the gloomy and over-arranged "Age of Metals" fails to satisfy fully, but even the group's lesser songs have enough innate goodness to be worth a listen. As holding patterns or closet cleanings go, Medium High is about as good as a fan of the 1900s could hope for.