RED BARON'S WORDS

Love’s The Cure The Afterglow Date: Sept 2005   —   Free   —   Music product page Rating:

If myspace.com gives me nothing at all it will have introduced me to The Afterglow from whom I received a free CD which turned out to be really rather fucking decent. The band are a group from the North West around Liverpool but seem to have spent a large amount of time out in Turin where they formed in 1998 settling on a line up a couple of years ago, and consequently they juggle their time between the UK and Italy. I got the email saying “The Afterglow want to be your friend” from myspace, I don’t have a vast amount of friends on it but I do tend to vet the music before consenting to be pals, I like to think that far from being a myspace tart I am rather exclusive!!! In this case I was happy to hear the four songs on their site 3 of which were taken from their current EP.

After adding the group as a mate I received a mail from their backroom team asking me if I wanted a free copy of their EP. Something to do with Gift Horses and Mouths sprang to mind. Some 3 days or so later up it appeared. By then I had already downloaded most of it because they are allowing free downloads from the myspace site and the music was good but no matter having the physical disk meant I sat and listened to it all through.

The opening track Love is a really easy entry into the band’s music. It goes straight into a languid rasping guitar and steady drum almost anthemic. The vocals are clear and the style is alluringly eclectic, something about the lyrics and the lines not quite being symmetrical, whether the Italian influence being a more poetic lilting language, it’s a difficult trick to pull off, someone has done it before but I can’t recall whom, I like it anyway and it’s nice to hear something that conforms to many good things whilst not just being a re-hash of everything that has gone before. The chorus is the strongest hook of the song, it brings Dave the vocalist’s voice out a little more and he’s got a grand and melodic pair of lungs.

Things I’ve Lost continues a mini theme that appears to run through certain parts about the fear of getting older. I can equate to this! It’s a good song but a little eclipsed by Love but mainly because I think it would be bloody difficult not to be.

As if to emphasise a flair for the accoustic track the thrid track Easy is a real find. I’m a sucker for well-strummed accoustic guitars and add a strong piano part in and you are likely to have the ingredients for a good rock ballad. Again the song is simple and unpretentious, a nice change to minor key for the chorus is another of those things guaranteed to get me hooked. If I like Love for its Summer in the car windows wound down quality, Easy is much more of an evening sunset mellow song, sort of thing you play whilst relaxing with some booze and the girlfriend.

Another Lie In The World is a considerable slow-down in pace I like the melody and the lyrics the song has a little more electronic feel to it although I don’t like the very synthetic sounding drum beat I find that detracts from the song which is a shame because other than that its accoustic simplicity has a certain charm.

I hope the band do well, I like their music, their ethos and the friendliness of their staff. As such they are the Baron’s top tip for Summer ’06. And it’s not as if you’ll even have to shell out to find I’m right.

The band are back in England in the Summer and playing near me in July, judging by the likely price of the gig I can consider it cheap payback for the EP and thus get the gig for free you get precious little these days for free and practically nothing that’s any good. This is a nice exception to that rule, if you miss it then you’ll only have yourself to blame.