Review

These five Londoners know what they’re doing. Otherwise you certainly wouldn’t subtitle your first album Eleven Songs About Failure. The record opens with three power-pop-rock cannonballs – ‘Acrobat’, ‘Crime Of The Century’ and ‘Diggin’ A Hole’.

The band don’t try and deny their influences, be it The Beatles, XTC, The Cars or Iron Maiden. Not only those: you could easily imagine Jimmy Page or Slash crazily riffing to ‘Diggin’ A Hole’ and Freddy Mercury providing backing vocals on ‘Happy Man’. Incidentally, the latter track is probably the best song on the record.

The powerful opening lay down their template, delivering energetic guitars, nice and easy keyboard melodies and infectious choruses. ‘Dissolved’ has the misfortune to follow that strong opening and can’t help but sound like an average upbeat pop song. However, the remainder of the album is filled with crunchy, deep and powerful sounds, and even a twist on the epic with ‘Invisible’. Still, it’s immediately apparent that these 11 songs are anything but a failure. Virginia Arroyo

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

DOWNLOAD: ‘ACROBAT’, ‘DIGGIN’ A HOLE’, ‘CRIME OF THE CENTURY’, ‘HAPPY MAN’.
FOR FANS OF: WEEZER, WOLFMOTHER, JIMMY EAT WORLD.

Posted on: April 1, 2009