Being the first winner of the weekly Bandidge Radar Artist of the Week will always give Rob Tamplin, aka With Stones In His Pockets a place in the site’s history.

But can his E.P stack up to the praise heaped on him by readers and fans?

The impressions given on Farewell Happy Fields suggest so. There’s a great deal of comparisons with musical peers to be found within this five track E.P – whether liked or not – there’s the sounds of New York scene on Parting of The Sea, whilst Are You Awak’d? is a soundalike to recent solo troubadour, Napoleon IIIrd.

Those are far away from the mark when it comes to opening song, We Are All Bad Actors, with its live feel and looping guitar that sounds like it’s from the 1960’s. It ebbs and flows as it takes its natural course, encompassing a slight Pixies vibe with its off kilter song structure as it stops, starts and changes pace and direction.

After listening to this E.P, it becomes apparent too that there are a varied array of musical directions and styles on show that also manage to somehow fail to fall too far from the tree. It’s a good position to be in, allowing subtleties and different interpretations of style and meaning to form over time.

The acoustic-led Speaking In Tongues is a good example. With just additional vocals alongside the guitar throughout the song, it at first washes over with great ease, but as the plays stack up it all becomes a lot more sinister, as those voices merge with the lyrics to provide something that’s a lot more haunting.

It’s a definite highlight, and it almost comes as a shock when the electronic beats and audible desecration of Are You Awak’d? comes in. The culmination of these two tunes provide the best moments of the five-track release, with their split personality soundclash becoming nothing but enjoyable.

During Meine Kleine Cosmonaut, it’s almost passable to hear some Bowie-like intonation in the vocal delivery, especially as the lyrics divert themselves toward Germany; home to some of Bowie’s most influential songs. Those with a more recent mindset may here some of Blur’s balladry from the mid nineties in the musical arrangements, with overall thoughts leaning toward the ‘pretty good’ category.

New York guitar setups reign supreme on disc closer Parting Of The Sea, with a dark, menacing undertone never staying too far away from the surface. As stripped down guitar parts overlap and stumble over eachother (in a good way) before settling down into a unified parallel, subtle strings come into earshot, providing a pleasant musical conclusion - even if the lyrics are slightly less so.

A solid set of tracks from Tamplin. 56% of voters can’t be wrong, it would seem...