I take back every bad thing I ever had to say about Tanya. The story is, she used to irritate the living hell out of me. I couldn't deal with her in Throwing Muses, I wanted to kill Belly, and even her string-work got to me on the Breeders' delicious debut, Pod, annoyed me (just 'cause it was her).

Now, I feel stupid, because you know what? Sliding and Diving is incredible.

Easily the best four song EP in existence, you can't resist the sudden kick of "Bum," a song whose wind-tunnel rock and roll surpasses Sinead O'Connor in balls and Tori Amos in venom. The song's abrupt halt leaves you dizzy, but brings you down perfectly for the next track, a Patsy Cline- Jewel Kilcher hybrid called "Restless," in which the laidback, western slide-guitar dazes you just enough to be slightly damaged by lyrics like, "You hold my hand like it's a razor."

The truly awesome doesn't occur until the very end, though, with the incredible "Swoon," a song that combines all the previous elements in a moment of pure honesty that breaks your heart and cuts your jugular.

On the down side, four songs is certainly not enough. Fortunately, Sliding and Diving is a pre-cursor to Donelly's forthcoming solo album due out later this year, so all this EP has done is made me impatient. If you've never quite seen the appeal of Tanya before, it's because she clearly works better as a solo artist that with a full band.

-Ryan Schreiber