Really, the song defies categorisation, just as the band does; it’s one of those in which every bar seems to contain a hook, but the bit that really makes it for me (apart, of course, from the sheer joyous unhingedness of the chorus) is the unexpected extended secondary bridge about two-thirds of the way in, a rapid staccato chant hurtling in on the wave of the building instrumental and vocal swirl which follows the second verse/chorus/bridge, cresting with an implosive, emphatic shout, and investing the song with a whole new momentum as it races to its end…
As with many of the finest individual 4ad cuts, “Not Too Soon” is more than a bit inexplicable — I have a feeling that there are a lot of words in the song, but the only ones I know are isolated, evocative phrases which I’ve probably heard wrong anyway — and whatever’s actually going on with the song seems always to be just out of reach, but what I know is that it’s totally, totally brilliant.
