As played on John Kennedy's Show on XFM and included in his Xposure! chart of May 2001 in The Wire mag.
Crashing waves of beautiful mellow sounds on guitar, led by a powerful drum roll. Parts of this 10" are "Silver Machine" played at half-speed. If Hawkwind were on uppers then these guys are on downers - but the music is actually uplifting, as you're led through a crescendo of crashing drums, screaming guitars and intense bass. It's a trip, alright - but it's feet are firmly routed to the ground. This instrumental is not confined to any rules - it's surround sound on it's own, with an early Pink Floyd feel, but less intense and psychedelic. On top of all this there are hints of metal and goth-rock.. For those wee early hours when you are enjoying good music and are too mellow to bother with waking up the neighbours, put this on. The flip side, "Fry up" is far more riff orientated, and has Sunday dawn in mind.
Record Collector May 2001
If I wasn't as old as I am then I would probably be left in a dribblng mess on the floor after hearing these tracks. The Workhouse play great guitar based music, mostly instrumental..."Paper Plane".....is pure heaven guitar rock that reminds you of the guitar music of The Chameleons and Slowdive, early Verve...Fry Up, the next track is again guitar based but sounds a bit weird and changes mid-tempo and goes off into another direction, a promising band....
Independant Underground Sound #6 Summer 2001 - a nice fanzine contact
I've sadly missed out The Workhouse's previous two releases and given the limited nature of this latest release you'd do well to harass your local underground friendly record store, like now. Pressed on 10 inches of heavy duty vinyl, handmade sleeves and 200 only and carefully nurtured and provided by those nice people at Emma's House Recordings, 'Paper Plane' is probably the best nine minutes of aural atmospherics you'll experience this month. I pride myself on being blissfully ignorant to most things, but if someone were to say this lot had some loose connection to Bang Bang Machine, then I would not bat an eyelid, such is the intricate nature of the soundscape webs they lay. The Workhouse sound neatly lies somewhere between the tortured monolithic melodies of La Bradford and the shimmering lushness of Slowdive. From tiny acorns grow massive oaks the saying goes, and so to 'Paper Plane' it could be equally observed such. Starting timidly in what seems like an age to warm up, it slow morphs in a tense epic of monstrous proportions, from innocent beginning this blighter gains mass as it traverses providing a collective of aural trajectories that leave you euphorically enlightened and emotionally spent. 'Fry Up' on the flip side is the beefed up older brother, equipped with edgy zig zag guitars underpinned with a floor shaking grinding bass, the flowing atmospherics within bear resemblance to classic Chameleons b-sides. Stopping abruptly midway through it manifests to an altogether more tranquil altitude and attitude, quite simply mercurial.
Losingtoday.com - October 2001
