Director a shiny new signings to Atlantic from someplace in Ireland but the singer sounds American or Canadian. They seem very baby faced, unlike the crowd, methinks this place might be full of record company types and journalists to see this band that has press and print peeking up around the place.
I brace myself for at least half an hour of Indie Shcmindie by numbers the preppy candidates take the stage. First impressions I am taken aback by the singer Michael Moloney; He has managed to get a deep and finely honed voice. Amazingly it sits above the rest of the band, gently and smoothly working the notes. This guy comes across as a musically learned man, one that writes out his songs with a pen and everything before committing them to tape or whatever fangled tool the kids use these days. Quite nice arrangements the verses seem to develop into choruses rather then just kick into them. Almost modern Morrissey like at times BUT and it is a big but.
The rest of the bands back him up with oh… Indie by numbers, We have some stabbing Ska tracks, we have the driving guitar tracks. We have the all the same backing tracks as every other indie band seem to do. The chiselled girly guitar player seems to marvel at his own dexterity. The whole experience starting to leave me a bit dry, what was a lovely warm voice before, is gradually leaking all dynamism and not even their emaculate shirts are stopping the loss love for this band. For some reason I want to hear Michael sing songs like Leonard Cohen, but I guess there is a lot of time for that yet.
