Album Reviews

On album number two, vocalist Zach Stephenson and drummer Billy Fleming are off to a surprisingly hesitant start. ‘My Stride’ sounds breezy enough, but feels a little too non-committal and safe. And while it comes with a decent enough chorus, it fails to leave much of an impression. Luckily things pick up from there with previously released single ‘Homely Feeling’ and the noisy yet poppy blast that is ‘I Wanna Be Everybody’.

And then just when you are getting into it all, they slow things down for ‘Danny’, a song about a guy called Danny. Which is something you won’t forget seeing as just about every other word is ‘Danny’. Something you might want to forget is the song itself. Kinda whiny.

Next up are ‘Join The Club’, an upbeat tune that hits all the right notes and sounds a bit like Manic Street Preachers, and ‘Whatever’, another slow one but one that is actually pretty good. And then it’s two steps back again with ‘Disappoint Me’, another bland rocker that doesn’t do much of anything except take up space.

At his point I was seriously rooting for these guys to get their shit back together, but alas… the album’s second half is even more lackluster with songs like ‘Stalker’ and ‘Where I Came From’. They kinda redeem themselves towards the end with the nonchalant ‘Sweet Release’ and the dreamy ‘Eggshells’, but it never gets quite as exciting as you want it to.

‘Blend Inn’ is a bit of a jangly mess. Some of it is really good, but unfortunately the rest of it gets automatically reduced to background music.