Frankly, I had just about forgotten Saint Etienne. It wasn't their fault, really, it was mine. 1992's excellent Foxbase Alpha kept me interested for a while back in the day, but right about the time of its release, I got distracted (along with the rest of the country) by the apparent triumph of that newfangled alter-native music. Saint Etienne's dancy interpretation of 60's pop was then silently buried under a mudslide of rawk, and I mostly tracked with the masses as they followed Kurdt to an early grave.

Obviously, the kids of Saint Etienne completely failed to notice my absence. They kept plugging away without me, honing their house- inflected Bacharachalia to a keen edge. Their recent signing to Sub Pop brought them back to my attention, though, and I backtracked from last year's Good Humor to find a couple of pretty solid albums. Sure, their albums are largely style- over- substance affairs, but they're exactly what a musical sweet tooth might want to hear. Unfortunately, this Places to Visit EP doesn't quite measure up to its predecessors.

Here's the problem: it's hard to establish a solid stylish victory with a running time of 21 minutes. Sure, it's only an EP, but these six songs just flit by, several of them ending right about the same time they really start to work. And of the six tracks, only three are proper songs-- the balance are basically transitional instrumentals. At least two of the "proper songs"-- namely "52 Pilot" and "Sadie's Anniversary"-- are really excellent: the former is a marimba- filled mid-tempo jam, and the latter a full-on torch song with big, juicy bass and an excellent chorus. The third, "We're in the City," is just a pretty standard Saint Etienne neo-disco number (read: it's good but not particularly memorable).

The other three tracks-- the instrumental ones-- are really what brings the EP down. Why? Well, because they're so good. That's right, you heard me. They're great songs, adding an experimental flourish to the sound with supplemental studio trickiness. They're just not developed enough-- they're too short, and the goodness ends up more a tease than a truly satisfying listen.

If we're lucky, Places to Visit represents the direction Saint Etienne is headed with their next album. Until then, this sampling will likely just leave its listeners frustrated. Those who hear it and find themselves wanting more should do themselves a favor and check out Combustible Edison's The Impossible World, an album which attempts some similar experiments and also manages to sustain them over the course of an album.

-Zach Hooker