7/10

For a band built around movement, texture and live intensity, a polished studio document was never likely to tell the whole story. And on their new offering 'Medea In Blue', Edinburgh five-piece Flame take the opposite approach, recording six tracks live in a rehearsal studio and allowing the rough edges, dynamic shifts and physical energy of the performance to remain firmly intact.

The band's sound pulls from several corners of alternative music at once, with grunge, shoegaze, folk, funk and prog-rock all feeding into the same restless framework. But the EP still works because they treats those influences as colours rather than destinations. At different points, there are shades of Porcupine Tree, Jeff Buckley and The Cranberries, but the stronger impression is of a group intent on building its own atmosphere.

Recent singles ‘Naive’ and ‘Heat’ already hinted at that range, but 'Medea In Blue' makes more sense of it in a live setting. The songs breathe differently here, as guitars are allowed to swell and fray at the edges, rhythms feel more physical, and the vocals carry the kind of immediacy that is difficult to reproduce once every element is separated and refined.

There's also this clear emotional centre running throughout. Their music repeatedly circles existential questions, personal uncertainty and transformation, and the live format gives those themes an added sense of urgency. Nothing feels overly staged, as the EP often sounds like a band working through the feeling of the song while it's still happening.

Following a number of notable live appearances already this year, Flame seem to understand that their identity is closely tied to the stage. And 'Medea In Blue' captures that well. It's raw, searching and unpolished in the right ways, feeling less like a substitute for seeing the band live than an invitation to understand why that matters in the first place.