Chalk The Goodnight Story up as a band with plenty of promise, but one that doesn’t quite deliver on their latest release. With a sound that seems to be a mix of The Academy Is… and Fallout Boy, the Stirling quartet (they recently parted ways with a guitarist) are certainly on the right lines with what they intend to do – and that’s throw in loads of vocal harmonies with some cute guitar parts, yet not stick to a cliched verse/chorus/verse style. And at times the band pull this off pretty well. ‘My Best Was Your Worst’ has plenty of good ideas, while Stephen McCrorie’s vocals are the best thing about ‘Pin Up’.
The problem with The Goodnight Story is not so much that they can’t play, nor do they have problems with structures or putting parts together, but to be one of those bands that rely heavily on melodies you have to have tip-top production and the tinny sound here doesn’t have a thick enough coating to make it stand out. Tracks like ‘Step Back’ and ‘If You Really’ aren’t quite catchy enough either, which is a shame because TGS clearly have the ability to match their US peers, but they haven’t quite hit the right chords just yet. If they work really hard on the foundations they’ve laid with this EP, they can easily jump up to being a 4* band – it shouldn’t take too much work as there is clearly talent here, it’s just not quite utilised as much as it could be. Ones to watch for sure.
www.thegoodnightstory.net
Paul