By Harry Lincoln, The Linc
“We used to be all arsey and say it’s alternative towards alternative but surely that’s mainstream?” says lead singer and guitarist Tom Myhill trying to explain the route the band took creating its sound.
In a top floor student apartment of Lincoln’s many student accommodation blocks the four boys took the “question and answer” session and threw it out the window. After an initial question relating to their style, it was clear that their music was similar to the way they bantered.
Instrumentation is a defining ingredient in any band. Showing that they’re all pants and no trousers the boys perform a live track in their kitchen — upsetting a few neighbours in the tight-knit tower block. With Black Keys acoustic flair they head into aptly named ‘Joe’s Kitchen,’ which can only be described as a hell of a good stab at emulating Incubus.
The lyrics are hard hitting, picking up dropped rhythm lost by the standard drumming – done on purpose. The chorus brings everything back down to a melodic but still pounding riff. The unproduced sound carries them through, as does the layered guitars personified by Tom as the equivalent in style of a geek with a guitar, playing a “funky bluesy rock, with elements of punk”.
When listening to Vapour, from their Green Man EP, you get the impression of an Eddie Vedder voicing presence, met with early Spin Doctors guitar phrasing. The song structure itself is thankfully nothing like Pearl Jam’s. Adopting a structure similar to Joy Division or The Cure, the ABA format can’t fail to give your foot those involuntary taps.
The solo is a bit too long and the drumming is too sloppy-Joe but the song shows promise, as does the EP. The ‘Green Man Sessions,’ while horrifically under produced isn’t consistent throughout.These guys don’t want to conform and it shows in their music. You only have to look at the mix of student backgrounds within the band: politics, photography, media studies and more politics.
Half of the guys did music technology at A-level – hence the effect-laden solos and thickness. If you listen to Chicago, at the heart of this borderline visceral melodic poem beats an electronic heart — a Casio’s. Melody breaks in and out through both voice and nearly all instruments. No solos in this but a bit of cheeky heavily fuzzed fun, all held together by sordid Bowie moaning: “Kill the flavour or kill the attraction.” Dirty.
The band plays every Wednesday in the Jolly Brewer, Lincoln. You can hear their EP on Facebook.