FOX FORCE FIVE – Demo
www.myspace.com/foxforcefiveuk
Indie would-bes FOX FORCE FIVE appeared as one of a plethora of unsigned hopefuls at Manchester’s MAPS festival, a showcase that took place across a multitude of venues over a long weekend at the beginning of the summer. The quartet continue their trawl round the north-west gig circuit, and are currently to be found in the locality if you hail from the North –West.
Opening with ‘Middle England’, a downbeat tale that unravels at 90m.p.h. on the back of a cymbal-crashing backbeat, the raw-to-edgy sound of slight distortion is quick to assert itself whilst the wah-pedal enhanced middle eight and urgent vocals complete the indie-rock-by-numbers sonic tapestry.
The acoustic sounds like a 12-string, and the vocals are pushed to the forefront during, ahem, ‘Painted By Numbers’. It’s an aimless wander over well-chartered territory, with the synths and electric guitars only muddying the overall effect. When the inevitable drop-out comes, is it effective, or just a relief? With the bass at low odds to the rest, there’s disunity rather than tension.
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‘Roulette’ is gain-heavy and pedestrian, but here the shambolic recording works in the song’s favour. Guttural, mantra-like singing and a smattering of sonic trickery betrays a gang of lads brought up on Oasis records and other swagger. They have all of the attitude, and most of the spirit but, sadly, these songs fall way short of the obvious benchmark, let alone add anything new to what’s become a cartoon received notion of what a northern indie band should sound like. The dead giveaway as to the lack of originality is in their name (they are just one of three bands with the same monicker). Sheez!
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