I remember how seriously bummed I was when The Organ decided to call it quits in late 2006. As far as I was concerned at that point, The Organ weren’t just the best band in Vancouver, they were the best band the city had produced in my lifetime of giving a damn about the Vancouver music scene (as in, not long enough for mine to be a valid opinion, really). Their brand of sparse, brooding, well-crafted indie pop was just the sort of thing I was bemoaning the city’s lack of upon returning from five months in London. Sure, I was riding a 21-year-old’s self-indulgent wave of “why can’t it be better here?” misery pretty hard, having yet to embrace the sort of abrasively angular deathpunk Vancouver seems to do so well and so often. But the rise of The Organ and their brilliant debut LP Grab That Gun really made me believe that we were on the brink of a whole new musical era around here.

Of course, instead of taking a deserved spot within the Canadian music pantheon with the likes of The New Pornos or The Arcade Fire or one of those Wolf bands, The Organ broke up. It was never really clarified as to whether it was because of Katie Sketch’s blossoming modeling career (is she still doing this?), the pressures placed on the band while composing a highly-anticipated sophomore LP, or something boring like Sketch and guitarist Deborah Cohen growing apart and moving to different cities, and at this point it doesn’t really matter. They gave us a couple EPs, one great album, a few good shows, and then became a memory.

It’s a memory that should be warmly rekindled by Mint Records’ release of the six-song Thieves EP, which comes – if not completely unannounced – as something of a pleasant surprise. According to the story, sometime last year The Organ quietly reunited in studio to re-record previously penned songs slated for their second album, applied spit and polish, and set this little duck free to become a swan-song. And shit, wouldn’t you know it; almost all of these tracks stand up alongside the best things The Organ has ever done. “Oh What A Feeling” manages to immediately dispel any undesired allusions to Crowbar, “Fire In The Ocean” is the angry kid sister to “Memorize The City”, and “Don’t Be Angry” is perhaps Sketch’s finest moment as a vocalist and a hauntingly fitting way to end The Organ’s story. However, like the songs themselves, the overall effect of Thieves is bittersweet; sure, we get six new or new-ish Organ songs, but we also get left with every indication that LP2 was on its way to becoming a classic and that The Organ were on their way to do even greater things. And maybe, in light of that, “Don’t Be Angry” becomes an even more perfect closer, because I’m kind of passively pissed off that they're gone.