Recently I was at a small acoustic gig that Midnight Youth frontmen (singer Jeremy Redmore and guitarist Simon Oscroft) put on for a magazine they’d been featured in. Immediately following that I put out the call – I had to have the album.
Sure I’d heard their singles The Letter and All On Our Own all over the radio, but to be honest... I’d just dismissed them as poppy commercial tosh! But Redmore can sing - man he can sing! And many of the songs off their debut release The Brave Don’t Run are not only catchy but well written.
The album starts strongly with Cavalry, an up-beat rocker on an otherwise pretty pop album and the track from which the album takes its name. The two singles so far are catchy, fun sing-a-long numbers, but the real gems for me in the album are Dead Flowers and Golden Love.
Dead Flowers is a song that I can’t help but stop and listen to when it comes on. Up-tempo, guitar driven and a catchy chorus with harmonies that force me to sing along with them. The kind of music that you will inevitably get caught clapping along to when waiting at the traffic lights.
Golden Love is a ballad through and through but a good one. Backed by Oscroft on acoustic guitar, it’s on this track that Redmore gets the chance to really use his voice. The soaring vocal line shows us his range and the near-whispered finishes to lines bring out the smokey quality he seems to find quite naturally.
Anyone who’s heard the album may be a little surprised that I’m going to mention Benjamin. It’s probably no one’s favourite, but it stood out for me because of its quirkiness. A rambling melody and sparse, staccato backing equipped with brass a lord knows what other noises thrown in reminded me of some Ben Folds songs and seemed vaguely reminiscent of a young Beatles just playing around in the studio.
It’s not the greatest album I’ve ever heard, but one that certainly shows promise and is one that I'll hang on to. For those of you who like the singles you hear on the radio, this album will offer you more of the same enjoyment. If you’ve been prepared to write Midnight Youth off as commercial flash-in-the-pan-ism, I urge you to give the album a listen. You might be surprised at how musical it really is. It certainly surprised me.
No comments:
Post a Comment