Yahoo! Music Review

Released on 04/06/07
Label: B-Unique

To paraphrase Bill Shankly - a true working class hero you suspect The Twang would thoroughly approve of - pop isn't a matter of life and death: it's far more important than that. The problem with this - for the real, passionate, foaming at the mouth pop fan - is that it's too easy to lose perspective. A band is either the best of all time or the worst band ever, geniuses or fools. In pub rows across the country, the Arctic Monkeys' first album is either the best debut ever or the most overrated.

The truth, as usual, lies somewhere in between. So let's get this out of the way quickly: The Twang have neither come to save pop nor bury it. They're an interesting and breezy indie pop band with a more interesting record collection than the majority of their rivals: nothing more nor less.

Things kick off - in both senses of the phrase - with the impressive, instant opener "Ice Cream Sundae", with its lovely chiming guitars from Stuart Hartland, liquidly funky rhythm and brash, confident vocal by Phil Etheridge. If there's a nagging suspicion that there's more pomp than circumstance here, or moments that "Love It When I Feel Like This" staggers into sub-Kasabian-bluster, then the sheer gusto and tunefulness of it carry it through.

Unfortunately, The Twang don't have much more to offer, and over the course of this, their debut, things get boring and - very, very obviously - derivative. Take "Wide Awake", which is likeable enough until you realise it's one part Streets paranoia, one part Oasis attitude and one part U2 pomp rock. Exactly. As for Etheridge's much-discussed lyrical themes - drink and take drugs, get paranoid, get hugged by bird - they've been called rogueish, but are just as often boorish.

Mercifully, there are some good tunes. "Either Way" may boast one of the most exaggerated, look-at-me regional accents since Dick Van Dyke did Cockney, but the breeze and ease of the melody rescue it comfortably. And "Cloudy Room"'s Morricone flourishes and dread-laden bass are so effective you may not notice the lyrics have been written by Shaun Ryder, after having all his wit and originality surgically extracted, or that it ends with an impersonation of Mister C.

Other songs - the thunderingly obvious groove of "Loosely Dancing" and the rather dreary title track - reveal the band as fairly decent, flawed newcomers The kind people use to pad out their record collections, but don't come to blows about down the pub. Which might not be as interesting as "most exciting band of 2007", but is far more accurate.

    by Jaime Gill