Imagine if Reuben weren’t so angry. Imagine if Biffy Clyro weren’t so ridiculous. Finally, imagine Hell is for Heroes without the ability to rock you to the very core, and you’re left with Lockjaw Records’ Showing off to Thieves. Here with their debut mini-album entitled ‘Everyone has their secrets’, they are blasting onto the UK music scene in an epic blaze of….mediocrity.
It’s not like these six songs are ‘bad’, far from it in fact. From the opening track you can clearly tell that theses four lads from Bath have a knack for writing melody-driven post-hardcore, with infectious vocal lines and an effective loud-quiet-loud dynamic throughout their tunes. However, you can’t help but want more than what is on offer here, and ultimately the finished product sounds a little bit rushed.
‘Parody of an Angel’ is the strongest effort here, with frontman Andy German’s resonating chorus of ‘this girl is fucking unstable’, only bettered by the supporting cast of a whining guitar riff, and gritty bass-driven verses. Sadly as things progress, the spark of the opening few tracks is lost within the increasingly flat-sounding vocals and unremarkable guitar parts of ‘You never cease to amaze me’ and ‘Safety in Numbers’.
I really wanted this to be something special, and it had so much potential to be so, yet it fell flat on the last few hurdles. If the last three songs were cut from the record, and it ended up being a 3-track EP, it would have earned itself an extra star at least, but unfortunately the second half of ‘Everyone has their secrets’ brings the whole piece below an exceptional standard, which is a damn shame.
Better luck next time lads.
Andy R