Two Choices: Have you heard/Longest journey

This 4 piece indie rock/pop band hail from Brighton, England and have been around now for over 10 years, mainly playing pubs and clubs in the UK and Europe. They released a mini-album in 2009 which is included with this new e.p. as a bonus. Despite winning an unsigned bands award they are still looking for a label to take them on.

In the new release they make good use of synths which gives the songs a somewhat 80s feel and a rather heavy bass line to support their unremarkable but competent lead singer who appears to be effecting a rock style like Roger Daltrey rather than being himself. The anthemic, "Chasing Rio" is about the best of the four radio-friendly songs and the closer "Angels" has a strong hook in the chorus but frankly this e.p. is not going to set any label alight as it is simply not distinctive enough for it to stand out from the massive number of bands playing in this style. They need to improve the lyrics which are pretty banal and move away from the over-used riffs and chord progressions to find something that makes the songs stick in the mind. Overall my impression is that they try too hard to sound like bands such as Scouting for Girls rather than setting their own style. Good luck to them though – these are decent enough songs which maybe just lack some professional production input and writing guidance.

The songs on their debut mini-album are if anything a little weaker which is at least a good thing as it shows they have made some progress in the period between. The start of the second track bizarrely sounds like the intro to Hawkwind's Master of the Universe. I don't wish to sound mean but I feel they would have been better expanding the current e.p., even including or rerecording one or two of the better older songs such as "Start it over", than reissuing this with the new one.

Track Listing
1. Here we go
2. Chasing Rio
3. I believe
4. Angels

Added: August 23rd 2010
Reviewer: Richard Barnes
Score:
Related Link: Band MySpace
Hits: 1790
Language: english

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