Driving By Night - Departure
Dental
Driving By Night have peddled their version of melancholia tinged rock for quite a few years now. They’ve played some prestigious shows, shown unquestionable dedication and somewhere along the way acquired the tag “Belfast’s hardest working band”. Not the most coveted title you’d imagine. Surely it’s much better to be recognised as Belfast’s most talented, most promising, most entertaining or most interesting band rather than “hardest working”?
Perspiration is an admirable asset of course but it is inspiration that elevates the truly special bands above the merely workaday. The question then, do Driving By Night have that uncommon creativity?
‘Departure’ might not represent a resounding affirmation of the band’s creative capacities but it at least demonstrates that they shouldn’t be counted out of the race just yet. Throwing anthemic shapes, this wedge of mournful indie-rock is beautifully crafted, the initial spark becoming an inferno before raging its way into an an eminently epic chorus. They know their way about a song alright but again lack that quirk that might set them apart from the hordes of impassioned indie-rockers. That is not to discount the abundant promise displayed here, ‘Departure’ finely choreographed even if the moves remain a touch too familiar. Francis Jones
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