The Birds and The Bees,
Tonight is Goodbye
The press release informs me that “The Birds and the Bees” EP is a “self assured introduction” to Tonight Is Goodbye, but you can look a bit further back to find that this Bucks based band can rock out in style. Having first heard the band due to knowing a former member (who had previously been in a number of fairly decent local bands in my area) I stumbled across the track “Monroe” and knew I was onto a winner. While this track seems to have disappeared from their myspace page, and seemingly isn’t mentioned anywhere else, it has a massive opening riff and a huge chorus that would be the envy of many young bands. In addition to that I noticed that drummer George Lindsay also had a knack for putting together some excellent and relaxed computerised beats (many of which can be sampled at his myspace page). In short – this release isn’t the first I’ve heard of Tonight Is Goodbye.
Unfortunately this EP doesn’t quite match up to the impressive “Monroe”, but at times tracks such as “Black Dress” are as infectious and this band are certainly heading in the right direction. Vocally it can come across as a little irritating though – but that’s often the nature of this musical genre. “You and your tune” is a more complete track that is apparently aimed at “copycat bands and rip-off merchants” and this confuses me a little. The band themselves aren’t cutting edge at all and therefore this stab can seem a little hollow – but you quickly look past that and find yourself ironically wanting to sing along with frontman Ant West.
Tonight Is Goodbye is one of the most un-inspiring band names you are likely to find in this “scene” and before you’ve even put the cd in you can take a good guess at what this band will sound like. It’s essentially nothing we haven’t heard before but that can somewhat mask the fact that these four tracks are pretty accomplished for such a young band (average age of 17) – in addition to this it’s a great release for Tree Brain Records. Having appeared at the Brixton date of last years Taste of Chaos tour and using the producing talents of John Mitchell (who has previously worked with Funeral For A Friend and Enter Shikari) this band do have a very polished pop-rock sound and it wouldn’t surprise me to see this band following a similar path to Kids In Glass Houses.
Tom
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