Packaged with Gondry-esque sleeve artwork that can only be described as baffling, The World Could Turn Around is music to accompany a dream. While a pleasantly melodic flavour dominates the mood of the music, there is a noticeable Discordian unease, like a pleasant dream that has you inexplicably sweating in terror when you wake up.

This phantasmic ambience is driven home by the record's lyrical content, running the gamut from frustration and despair to hopeful optimism. "Dreams & Delusions" explores discomfort in one's own mind, even mental illness, mirrored by the jarring transition from soaring, clean vocals in the beginning of the song to screaming and shouting towards the end.

And in "A New Day", the words speak for themselves:

"It seems when everything is alright
I wake up.
As my eyes become the window
I feel the world tremble."

But lyrical content aside, The World Could Turn Around is a breath of fresh air. Upbeat, dynamic and bombastic, it's true that the first comparison triggered is with pre-Black Holes Muse, but upon closer inspection there's a lot of originality, and a lot to like, in the Melburnians.

Beginning with the ornate tinkle of a lone piano and escalating into driving alterna-rock with passionate, soaring screams, "Prisoner" introduces the range of moods to follow. The bridge section and final chorus, thumping and crashing and booming, dripping with angst, provides one of the highlights of the album.

The title track is slightly less overtly aggressive, but with notes not normally heard in your standard rock music fare, this is where the chaotic uneasiness first makes its presence felt. More jazzy and less heavy than the album opener, "The World Could Turn Around" makes great use of floral piano lines but ends up being the song on the EP most easily compared to Muse.

Moving sharply away from Muse territory, the intro to "Dream & Delusions" is moody, broody and angry, with a driving bass line and understated vocals. As soon as the chorus kicks in, in all its Dream Theater-style majesty (no pun intended), the real power of the song is unleashed. The highlight of the entire record for me is where vocalist Brendan West is singing the lyrics "running from the monsters / ravishing my head", and the accompanying music perfectly provokes the feeling of running, with bouncing guitars and percussive lyrical enunciation. Brilliant.

Slowing things down somewhat, the intro to "A New Day" begins with solo piano and elegant vocal harmonies, eventually joined by a cello, bass and a subtle drum beat. At almost six minutes long it is the longest track on the record, twisting and turning, ducking and diving, building to a grandiose finale, but is by no means the centrepiece of the album.

That title belongs to "Don't Let Them Break You", the album's conclusion. A bipolar tale of hopelessness and optimism, it's an exploration of the duality evident in the mind: choking with despair on one hand, but surviving, finding inner strength from somewhere deep down that tells you to hold on, no matter what happens.

It brings the EP to a fittingly optimistic close only 25 minutes after it began. With only six tracks on the record, my only real complaint is that it ends all too soon... just like a dream.