14.1.12

Red Kyte - 'Look To The Sky' (self released) 3.5/5

Red Kyte are a five piece indie type pop-rock outfit based between Brighton and Oxford, and this is their debut album.

Now as indie rock type stuff this isn't too bad. there are eight tracks on offer, most of which follow the fairly safe indie rock formula of big walls of fuzz guitars with a chiming lead, Aled Phillips style plaintiff vocalisations, big hooky choruses etc. It is a tad generic, but fortunately not too annoyingly so; this band are no Tiger Please or Kids In Glass Houses, but they are mercifully several cuts above the likes of My Extraordinary and Street Fight Silence - mainly due to the fact this lot can, when they put their minds to it turn out a good tune.

Don't get me wrong. not everything on here is top notch, the best material on offer here is is placed towards the end of the album, meaning the listener has to struggle through a couple of fairly uninspiring indie rock by numbers cuts like Hearts Of Stone and You Are My Gold before they reach the good stuff.

And the good stuff IS worth looking out for. You get the chilled and laid back Not Letting Go which has a certain Radiohead vibe about it. Safe Side which is a bit of rock that hints at the aforementioned Tiger Please. Sharks is a great anthem with a catchy hooky chorus, that has fan fave penned all over it. Then we have the mini epic closer of ...But Where Do We Go From Here? that smacks of Kids In Glass Houses jamming with The Verve and features a very nice Hammond organ chord at the very end.

Over all this album isn't earth shattering, but its a competent and promising debut from a young band that if they started to develop their own sound and move away from the well worn indie rock pathways could turn into an outfit of note.

For Fans of... Tiger Please, Kids In Glass Houses, Lost Prophets, Radiohead etc...

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