adg211288 Rocking Horse (2012) is the debut EP release by UK heavy psych act Purson. Purson were formed by frontwoman Rosalie Cunningham after the demise of her previous outfit Ipso Facto. I haven't heard that band but research tells me that they were more in a psychedelic pop/rock vein. Purson therefore can be seen as Rosalie turning things up a notch.

Rocking Horse contains four tracks, two of which were rerecorded and reappeared on the band's debut full-length album The Circle and the Blue Door (2013), those being the two bookending tracks which are the title track and Spiderwood Farm respectively. The other two songs, Twos and Ones, and Wool have remained exclusive to this EP. I happen to consider the debut album a masterpiece so it's not really fair to single out any tracks from it as inherently better than others but I can say that Spiderwood Farm is my personal favourite. The version here is notable shorter than the album version (3:30 compared to 5:09) but it's still easy to get addicted to. The two versions of Rocking Horse are much closer to each other though the main different between these early takes and the final versions from The Circle and the Blue Door is that they're aren't as polished, which is only to be expected. They're still very good though. It's clear that Purson kicked off their career in high gear.

Twos and Ones and Wool though are pretty good songs as well and make the EP worthwhile to fans of the following album. Wool even has a claim on being the band's heaviest song. Very fuzzy with a chugging riff. It's the closest that the band has come to crossing into metal territory to my ears but even though they're not a metal band, as with The Circle and the Blue Door, I don't see Rocking Horse having trouble appealing to metalheads as well as psych fans.

Since half of the EP was redone on the debut album Rocking Horse isn't the most essential release to track down but on a musical basis this is easily worth a high end 4 stars. If was polished up to album standard then my score would be even higher.