According to Tom Ogden, there hasn’t been a Manchester band with “great songs and strong melodies” for a while – but the Blossoms frontman’s band aren’t the saviours of the city’s musical legacy, either.
The quintet’s debut album was produced by The Coral’s James Skelly, ergo should have plundered from the wackier end of indie-pop.
Instead, it sounds like a safer version of that band with a dash of 1980s synthpop here (At Most a Kiss), strummed dirges (On Her Bed) and just the occasional flash of psych-pop (Blown Rose).
Ogden tries and fails to capture Alex Turner’s witty turn of phrase with humourless lyrics like “When you were mine / You were so kind / But you went and changed your mind”, but mostly, it’s just disappointingly bog-standard indie.
