Mr Sportsman
Good Morning Virtue EP
Self-Released
Rating: 3/5
The EP kicks off with ‘The Assassination of Eddie Barzoon’, which aside from having an out-of-tune lead in the chorus is a pretty cracking song. It’s somewhere in the ballpark of the festival end of Snow Patrol’s oeuvre, with a little 90s grunge settled in the attitude of the guitar playing.
Track two, ‘How Have You Been’ is very Without You I’m Nothing-era Placebo (albeit sans Brian Molko’s trademark whine), and becomes rather ‘anthemic’, I suppose, towards the end. A little unfocused then, perhaps, but a good track nonetheless; it keeps up the energy for what they clearly consider to be the centrepiece of the collection.
It’s clear by track three, ‘The Beauty, the Bold…’ that this band have one thing uniting all the tracks- ambition. They’ve unmistakably set their heart on the big-time, and these thick guitar tones, solid rhythms and vocal harmonies are meant to be chanted, not sung, and by thousands of people at that. I can’t say it’s really my thing, but I know plenty of people that want to hear this kind of slightly leftfield-leaning guitar driven indie rock.
My fear is that with electronic music increasingly being the norm, this young band have arrived a few years too late. Then again, AFI are still big and so are Feeder, so I guess guitar rock isn’t dead yet. Lucky for Mr Sportsman then, because if they got out there and got people listening to ‘The Beauty, the Bold…’ they might just find that crowd they are looking for.
Track two, ‘How Have You Been’ is very Without You I’m Nothing-era Placebo (albeit sans Brian Molko’s trademark whine), and becomes rather ‘anthemic’, I suppose, towards the end. A little unfocused then, perhaps, but a good track nonetheless; it keeps up the energy for what they clearly consider to be the centrepiece of the collection.
It’s clear by track three, ‘The Beauty, the Bold…’ that this band have one thing uniting all the tracks- ambition. They’ve unmistakably set their heart on the big-time, and these thick guitar tones, solid rhythms and vocal harmonies are meant to be chanted, not sung, and by thousands of people at that. I can’t say it’s really my thing, but I know plenty of people that want to hear this kind of slightly leftfield-leaning guitar driven indie rock.
My fear is that with electronic music increasingly being the norm, this young band have arrived a few years too late. Then again, AFI are still big and so are Feeder, so I guess guitar rock isn’t dead yet. Lucky for Mr Sportsman then, because if they got out there and got people listening to ‘The Beauty, the Bold…’ they might just find that crowd they are looking for.
The Assassination Of Eddie Barzoon by Mr Sportsman
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