Labels: self released
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Yoinks, 5 songs on this here demo from lovely Norwich lads, Long Live, and it’s over 30 minutes in length. Nice one.
Ok, I must admit I have a heavy bias in this review as the guys in this band are friends of mine and I have said that when they want to go for it I would love to help them release a record. So probably I am not the bestest person to review it, as I think they are awesome. Now that’s out of the way, I will proceed to fawn all over this.
We start out with “Eye Contact Through Frosted Glass” which is my favourite Long Live song and one that has been lingering around in their set for a long time. It is a joyously melodic indie rock number, with Jop and Klim’s dual vocals really shining through. The guitars and bass roll things a long with a slight jazzy influence (which shows up to a much greater extent on other songs like “Hidden Behind Time”). This song really sums up the bands sound for me, they totally have a feel of that mid-western / Kansas indie-emo sound from a few years back, although with more of a jazzy math rock flavour to the complexity of the guitar and drumming. And while they don’t sound exactly like any of those bands, they often bring to my mind bands such as Giants Chair or Ethel Meserve. And the main vocals from Klim make me think of the guy from Ordination of Aaron, which is cool. Another fantastic part on this CD is the short yet utterly beautiful song that appears after “Answer Remembered, Question Forgotten” before segueing into the amazing “An Overseas Robbery” which I just realised might actually might be my favourite Long Live track, my bad. Jop does some great 12 Hour Turn-ish talky-shouts to get this one going. It is a bouncy affair that mellows out towards the end. They end on the lengthy “Misplaced”, which is also my favourite Long Live song, oh well. It gets even better as it goes a long. Dual vocals on the end of this one are amazing, very Lumber!
The recording is definitely demo-ish, so don’t expect lots of polish and booming sound – but it’s a demo so yeah, shut up Andy. I love raw music anyway. Something else kind of odd is that the bass on some songs sounds too deep or low (not in volume, just on the noise scale) during gigs, whilst on here it sounds completely amazing and warm, just how I like it.
Great demo, and they’ll keep on getting better as time goes on – I’m sure (or I hope!) Klim won’t mind me mentioning that his vocals really have come so far since the early days where was sounding kind of timid out on stage. Good uns lads, good uns!