Demos

Motorcycle Display Team - Demo

Owain Paciuszko 08/11/2009

Rating: 3/5

London based three piece put together indie pop with style; lead track Worry Wings balances an angular riff with little flourishes here and there and Steven Hinds vocal that has a whiff of Tom McRae re-imagined as a winsome band leader. What impresses most is the garnish on the song, the use of backing vocals and quirky segways.

Firecracker has a driving drum-line but a somewhat anonymous tune, it's a pretty pleasant pop song, but there's a touch of familiarty to its sound without recalling anything that particularly impresessed in the first place. That's probably too harsh a judgment for the song in some respects, as it's not bad per se, it just brings little to the table (though some great choral backing vocals lend a hint of the grand).

Rolling drums and an impending bass-line herald the arrival of Beneath The Flowerbeds, whilst Hinds winds up sounding a bit like The Monkees' front-man Davy Jones in so much as there's a wide-eyed, retro charm to his vocal (that's not a slight, I like The Monkees). This sense of nostalgia jambalayed with indie-pop sensibility reminds me of The Bluetones, there's a similiar likability to Motorcycle Display Team, though this EP primer doesn't offer any potential break-out singles a la Slight Return it is a nice introduction to an interesting new band.