The band's "musical pen pals" approach started in the late '90s, when Lapham met Madden at a sound recording class in Manchester, and also met Carr at a record store in Texas. Acting as the link between the other members, Lapham handed out DAT tapes to Carr, Hatton, and Madden, and this way the group slowly built the songs that they began releasing in 2002 on EPs such as Bring It Back Again. In 2004, the band released These Were the Earlies, a collection of their previously released work, in the U.K. That year also marked the first time that all of the Earlies met each other in person, for a tour that expanded the band's ranks to a small army of 11. American fans had to wait until 2005 to get a domestically issued copy of These Were the Earlies, when Secretly Canadian released the album that fall. The band returned in winter 2007 with The Enemy Chorus, a much darker, more ambitious work that underscored their prog influences and added a dash of Krautrock for good measure. ~ Heather Phares