FENCES: ULTIMATE PUKE EP

Fences started in 2004, in Boston, the day Chris Mansfield thought, "I figured I might as well name this group of songs I'd been writing and have something to do with myself." He, like his music, is nothing if not brutally honest.

Mansfield was a student of jazz at the Berklee College of Music when he met his roommate, who played acoustic guitar and wrote terribly sad songs. Inspired by John's musical musings, Chris sold his upright bass for $5,000, used some of that money to buy an acoustic guitar, then spent the next year wrestling his personal demons.

While the exploration of his darker side proved fruitful in terms of songwriting fodder, everything changed when he met his current love, a beguiling woman with whom he moved to New York City. In 2007, the pair moved to Seattle, Mansfield met later that year drummer Matt Beacham, then Danny Kalan. Fences then became, truly and really, something formidable, each member treating the project seriously.

The Ultimate Puke EP is the band's first, and is a hauntingly beautiful thing, expertly and effortlessly written. Conjured and recorded in Mansfield's apartment, each song is plaintive and soulfully raw in the way the best spontaneous songs are – they're melodies with immediacy and urgency. You can hear just how close the mouth is to the mic on "The Knees": Mansfield is near whisper as his beloved slept in the adjacent room. Quiet and delicate though some parts of Fences' music may be, the music is a stark contrast to Chris's seemingly tough exterior.

Look for Fences as they tour in support of The Ultimate Puke EP throughout 2008 and 2009.