If you know your East London geography well, you'll know MORNING LANE is a thoroughfare in the Hackney district, but you also need to be aware that it's the moniker one of the area's most promising bands have adopted.
ML'S debut album "Cry With A Smile" comes via their own Under The Stairs imprint and via their website (www.morning-lane.com ). It broadly fits into the yearning, indie-with-ambition mould along the lines of Snow Patrol and Undercut, but has a few deviations up its' sleeve as well and demonstrates that Morning Lane are another of the capital's groundswell of bands (think The March Hares and until recently Plastik) who continue to do the DIY thing well.
And certainly "Cry With A Smile" totes a fair percentage of ideas and decent songs. The (I assume) Cobain tribute "Kurt's Ballad" shimmers nicely with a good mix of acoustic and electric instrumentation and cheekily employs the phrase "come as you are" in the chorus; "Chill Pill" allows singer Joe Killington's grainy, lived-in voice some space and shows he apparently has as much in common with Ryan Adams as any of the East London set and "Viciously" demonstrates ML can conjure a tougher, terser take on the patented Coldplay/ Snow Patrol sound with guitarist Steve Dourdil capable of knocking out some likeable, off-the-wrist soloing.
So far, so good, and several of the other tracks also offer a fair modicum of inspiration. "Sweet Melodies", for example, again proffers dreaming, chiming guitars, Adam Clayton-style basslines from Ross Butler and Killington giving it his best Richard Ashcroft, while "In My Head" opens with a weird, dungeon-bound rap (!) from former MC Killington flying over a dreamy intro before it morphs into a clammy, Radiohead-ish affair with a big, anthemic chorus.
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For me, the weakest track is probably "Ease", which opens with low-key beats, electronica and another slightly bizarre, Beastie Boys rap interlude from Killington. It's unfair to knock a basically indie guitar-based band for attempting to branch out, but this one sounds like too many cooks spoiling the broth, especially when - at the two-minute mark - a relatively half-baked song undergoes a great chord change and suddenly sounds like its' found the way ahead.
Nonetheless, these kind of things are nothing that a few hours with a good producer/ engineer and a slightly bigger budget wouldn't solve and overall "Cry With A Smile" is a good start. It shows promise aplenty, demonstrates this band pull together well as a unit and is a good showcase for Joe Killington's raspy, urgent voice, which is a good grade or two above the average indie throat providing he drops the dodgy MC-ing. Hackney may hardly be on the map as one of London's beauty spots, but it seems taking a stroll down Morning Lane is going to become an attractive propostition.
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