Demos

The Tides - You'll Never Change

Stephen Bray 18/09/2006

Rating: 2/5

The Tides are from Manchester, yet they don't strive to sound like the Stone Roses or Oasis. Oh, praise the Lord for small mercies!

However, they do - on the evidence of this single, at least - sound like a cross between a Muse ballad and a JJ72 album track which is, let's be fair, far from the 'bad' end of the spectrum of musical influences. Of course, it's not exactly at the 'great' end either, but let's give them a chance.

The Tide's debut single, 'You'll Never Change' is a real slow-burner. It takes an age to start, and eventually ends up getting somewhat lost in a huge "epic" chorus via a few verses of love-song-lyrics-by-numbers. Having said that, it's not actually all that bad at all. 'You'll Never Change' is a very well produced song, and it's also very well sung by Matt Bellamy soundalike Liam Pennington. It's a refreshing change to hear a relatively well crafted, well produced and well sung song, especially from a Manchester based band! With the right promotion and the right approach, this song could easily do big things for The Tides. One can quite easily imagine it on commercial radio, picked up as one of those indie-crossover hits that does very well for itself every once in a while.

The B-Side, 'Fall' isn't up to much at all. Again, it's very well produced, and all credit to the producer for that, as this is the sort of thing played by a dozen unsigned bands at a dozen dodgy venues every night of the year. The loud ending does at least attempt to be exciting, but it sounds rather grafted on, as if the band (or producer) felt that the song needed something to drag it out of its mediocrity. They very nearly succeed.

The Tides aren't great, but they're not all that bad either. A lengthy alliance with their uncredited producer could see them reap dividends and, given the chance to grow, the band could become quite interesting a few singles down the line.

The Tides Myspace