In the big ‘ol picture of UK ska bands, Stand Out Riot may find it difficult to be distinct from the crowd. While they have the hooks, the brass and the jive to push forward, for the moment this short EP does no particular favors. It neither excites nor bores and simply leaves the band treading dangerous middle ground and leaving no current direction in which to travel. The structure is there, and for brief moments it sounds damn good, but there is no real consistency or charm to the whole thing.
The title track opens it darkly and is decently paced but isn’t anything we haven’t heard before while ‘The Squeeze’ stands out as being the flagship of the EP. The variants between light and dark work well over gentle use of the organ and the whole track is a decent little throwback to early eighties stuff. ‘Today’ doesn’t quite continue the good form with the brass veering between stylish swings and not sounding particularly in time in a matter of seconds. The vocals on the other hand are pretty solid and complement the music well but Stand Out Riots immediate problem is standing out from a very popular genre, as for the moment they do very little to make a mark and may need to have a change in sound to get where they want to be.
Jay
www.standoutriot.co.uk