It's hard to imagine two towns as terminally unfashionable as Birkenhead and Walsall performing a Frankenstein-style mutation and producing a great band from the end results, but - against nature - this seems to have happened in the case of serious young whippersnappers THE OPEN, whose members proudly hail from a conglomeration of both places.
Admittedly, Liverpool once again acted as the catalyst as these five boys met up at art college in the great city and the fact they have the nous to namecheck the likes of XTC, Talk Talk and The Blue Nile in their bio is another shortcut to getting your reviewer's attention rapidly.
Brilliantly, the three tracks making up The Open's eponymous debut EP sustain the interest, too, though strangely the lead track "Never Enough" is probably the weakest of the trio. It's OK: proffering an energetic intro, spacy, jangly verses and with excellent bass playing from Jim Reynolds and a very in-yer-mush chorus, but singer Steven Bayley sounds uncharacteristically close to Kelly Jones on the chorus which is a bit of a downer. Still, the inclusion of a real, new wave-style guitar solo helps it regain lost ground.
No such problems with the other tracks "Music" or "Drown," though. The former is probably the best tune here, sliding in on a bassline that's simultaneously funked-up and dubbed-down, while spooked, descriptive keyboards and guitars reminiscent of Will Sargeant's hollow screech hardly hurt either. Initially, it sounded like it was an instrumental, but Bayley makes his presence felt after a long intro and the song then ebbs and flows, both flourishing and then scuttling back in the shadows to ensure the tension doesn't drop. "Live your life and don't look back," urges Bayley wisely, before it all fades away. Very good indeed.
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Final track, "Drown" continues to confirm the good impression. It's dreamy in a disturbing fashion and its' starkness works well, with another patient build up and Bayley getting really emotive over weird keyboards and droplets of haunting guitar. Deep and scarred, it's a fine ending to an EP that shows great promise.
I'm showing my age here, but there's definitely a nod to both early Bunnymen and their early Korova labelmates The Sound going on here, but if The Open can create a catalogue as durable as both of those bands, then they will definitely be worth chasing for the long haul. These songs suggests that's a real possibility.
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