subt lemon - nice try
received this album in demo form a few months ago, since then the band have rejigged the tracklisting and mastered the tracks and pressed the album up.
the reordering of the tracks seems to have added an extra spark to the album. it comes over much more vibrant than previously.
to recap, the songs are predominantly melody driven alt.rock but with a heavy dose of classic 70's rock feel ('down'), this is not modern nu-rock at all. a lot of these songs would sit easily on any aor radio station and make a perfect soundtrack to any long car journey. solid musicianship and strong melodies.
some of the songs have become standout over the last few months. firm favourites include 'big white comet' with its funky vibes, 'work it out for yourself'' with its catchy chorus (too catchy .. ), 'recognise', and 'too close for comfort' to name a few. ok, the band are not pushing into any new sonic territories and do not fall into any easy media friendly genre but as an album of well played guitar rock based songs then this could easily please a lot of people.
i will admit there are some songs that dont hold up well after several listens, 'james bond' just grates and drags on a bit too long for comfort and 'goodtime girl' suffers from any real grabbing factor. the vocals in places do need some refining, though i suspect that this is due to limited budgets more than anything else as a bit of proper studio production could easily add some more interesting sonic detail and bring out the obvious positive qualities better. having said that, i can well imagine the band being well received at any decent summer festival. as a lot of the album has that type of feel, sun friendly vocal harmonies and funky guitar licks .. not a bad combination.