The Famous Class - "Have You Ever" (pledge music) 2/5

London self styled 'pop-punksters' The Famous Class have been building a bit of a reputation around them over the past year or so. Headline tours of China, bill topping Belgium festival apperanaces, 02 Academy tours.... They must be doing something right. But What?

I gotta admit I'm at loss to describe it. After all there's nothing remarkable on this four tracker at all. OK its it competent and well played, but its so bloody generic it could be by any one of the hundreds of 'You-and-Green-182-at-Six' clones that are chancing their arms all over the world. You can play through this ep and tick all the right boxes for 'pop-rock cliche 101' on every track; wall of fuzz guitar sound, teen angst/coming of age lyrics, mob yell stabs and backing vocal, chorus key changes, middle eight breakdown... hell this stuff is so formulaic it could have been penned by machine.... That's a thought, are TFC the result of some evil Frankenstein experiment to make the most perfectly cliche commercial pop-rock band in the world? There is a hint in the press blurb that came with this ep. Apparently the band applied to be the band in the adverts for a certain diabetes inducing commercial energy drink... and failed. Could it be that even the band themselves see themselves not as musicians but product?

(Note - the question can be answered by a short visit to the bands website, where your bombarded by a series of adverts for pot noodle type snacks before you can explore it... This is not a band, they are an ad agency)

As you can guess this leaves me cold. In a time when the UK music scene is alive with great music by outfits such as The Skuzzies, Elimination, I Divide, Dakesis, Awake and many many more this ep can only be a retrograde step, as it is nothing more than a clone of what the mainstream music industry has been pumping down our throats for the past few years via the likes of Kerrang!! fm etc, and does nothing to help raise the profile of what is really going on on the UK rock scene.

Still horses for course I suspose. You teenies who have yet to experience real music and fans of disposable teen agnst pseudo punk might like it, and good luck to them, but real rock and punk fans will want to give this one a very wide berth indeed.

Not recommended at all.

for fans of.. Greenday, Blink 182, You and Me at Six, Razorlight....

Wheres Billy - 'The Truth Hurts' (controlled volcano) 4/5

London quartet Wheres Billy have been together for a few years now and have been building a fair rep for themselves with a fairly hefty gigging schedule that so far has taken them all over the UK, into Europe and even a few experimental trips stateside, and now they are hitting us with their debut ep.

Now on first listen I can see why they are getting quite popular on the uk scene, cos this ep is a nice little package of five choice cuts of fairly commercial and mainstream but hellishly infectious pop rock that bats from the same wicket as the likes of Kids In Glass Houses, Funeral For A Friend, Mind Machine etc; it's not the most original of sounds, but I will say they are good at it.

They lay out their stool with a niffy little track that goes by the name of Anxiety, that has some nice angsty and angry lyrics 'You are my reason to fail... BUT I WONT', and wraps them up in some nice driven riffage and a sweet short but slick lead solo. With the goods laid out they carry on in a similar vein  for the rest of the release, but each track does have something to offer. The solo on the title track has shades of Dave Gilmore about it, Escape Form The Darkest Mind (my fave cut of the five) has a cool interplay between some sweet jangly almost indie rock moments and some good old school hard rock crunch and chug riffing. Thoughts And Fears has another killer riff, this time sounding like a toned down Megadeth and closer is a real rocker that has shades of The Crave about it.

The vocals are good and powerful if a little derivative of many other singers fronting this kind of outfit, and the band are more than competent at their jobs as well. Over all this is pretty good stuff and an enjoyable if not very original.

Basically Wheres Billy show a fair bit of promise here, but whether they have the legs or the creativity to last the course in a scene already full of very talented bands in the same style remains to be seen.

Pretty good and well worth a listen.


For fans of.... The Crave, Kids In Glass houses, Mind Machine, I Divide, etc....

Fall Short For Glory - 'The Daytime EP' (self released) 4/5

This is the second ep from Bucks pop-punkers Fall Short For Glory in under a year, and I gotta say against all expectations I'm enjoying this three tracker very muchly.

Coming firmly from the Green Day, Blink 182, Arctic Monkey's stable FSFG have cooked up a very infectious and damn listenable little release. We start off with Is It Real Yet? a corkingly catchy ditty with a quirkly riff that brings to mind the early work of sadly missed Bristol outfit Clockwork Sniper. Stray Away is a bit more straight forward, sounding a bit like The Subways or The Skuzzies. It has a great sing-a-long-and-punch-the-air chorus and a cool minimalist guitar solo that wouldn't sound out of place on a track by London pop punkers The Red Zoids. The closer Never Look Back is perhaps the weakest of the three, but even this blows the balls off some of the pop-rock and pop-punk stuff that has passed through my inbox in recent weeks.

Over all FSFG have done themselves proud here, they show an aptitude to good song writing, and know how to construct a well catchy tune. I'm sure that given a year or two to develop their craft, and get out on the road to hone their skills and pick up the following that is sure to come, they will develop into a band the UK will start to take notice of. Highly Recommended.

For fans of... The Arctic Monkeys, Green Day, The Subways, The Red Zoids.....