Bands that are churning out the hybrid fusion of pop/punk fused with hard rock riffs are two a penny at the moment and it’s getting to the point where they’re hard to set apart but, and there’s a big but, most of them seem to be coming from across the pond. However, This Years Winner Is… hail from our very own shores – the Isle of Man in fact – and are generating that same kind of sound we’re used to hearing from our American counterparts.
This five track EP is the boys’ sophomore effort and as it stands is pretty solid. The songs, aside from ‘Eleven’, all sound fairly similar in terms of tempo and arrangement; A Day To Remember style riff breakdowns, New Found Glory-esque vocal challenges and the all-important pop/punk catchy choruses complete with feel-good hooks. Sure, it’s nothing we haven’t heard before but that isn’t always a bad thing. ‘Eleven’ is the strongest track on this short but strong offering, and from 29 seconds in it has the kind of drum structure heard in Forever The Sickest Kids‘ ‘Indiana’. From this, it swoops into layered vocals, which is where this band excels as without the gang backing or textured quality they have a tendency to sound a little vacant, and everything’s wrapped up with the kind of breakdown that wouldn’t be out of place on a Four Year Strong track.
It’s both a blessing and a curse to emulate the sound of American contemporaries, whether intentional or not, and although they have real potential with this release, This Years Winner Is… could do with putting a more unique or distinctly British stamp on a very over-done style. Saying this, the vocalist avoids altering his accent (for the most part), which is great and they do have a very British sounding production, as the EP sounds a little rougher than the slick heavyweights, giving their sound a kind of Hundred Reasons edge. It comes across really well, they’re tight, they’ve found a great balance of accessibility and power in their songwriting (snappy time changes, ballsy riffs, pop melodies) and Tim’s voice is given the commandeering quality it seems to lack by the band’s extensive use of both overlaid and gang vocals.
These components work together to create what we hear but the generic nature of their sound makes it hard not to compare them with the current flavour of the week (A Day To Remember, Four Year Strong etc), and while this is a good EP in many ways, the two factors that kept it from being great were the predominantly hollow vocals and the fact that nothing distinguished them from the fit-to-bursting current scene of bands like this.
Martha Whatley