Labels: Santos
Review by: Andy Malcolm
The first proper release here from Norwich indie rockers Long Live, and rather enjoyable it is too.
It contains three songs, the first one up is “the Point of Contact” which rolls in with it’s
awesome melodic intro that gets me every time. It then develops into a much jazzier song with Jop and
Klim trading off vocals over the skittish guitars and free-flowing drumming. Klim’s vocals often
remind me of Ordination of Aaron, whilst the melodic yet busy song structure here is reminiscent of
mid-west favourites like Ethel Meserve, and the similarities to a band like Owls and the Green Acre
is to be heard too. The song is long and evolves often, changing pace and direction. I really love
the finale where they return to the twinkly intro. The song does seem to get a bit bogged down at
times in the quicker-paced complex parts and sometimes over jazzes the pudding more than is to my
tastes, but overall it is damned fine. On the flip we have “Picture Postcard” (not a Promise Ring
cover), it starts off with a lovely rolling groove and great vocals, having a Giants Chair flavour.
It seamlessly flows into “Awake” which fuses the unsettled song structures to nice melodies again,
jumping from foot to foot in a nervous fashion. There is a super-nice mid-west styled part that
rears it’s head briefly in the middle before they get fiddly again.
My first listen to the 7″ was a minor let down as my favourite Long Live stuff is the slightly less
jazzy material, but having got that out of the way I proceeded to really enjoy this because these
songs are pretty damn special. Long live Long Live!