Apologies: I really should invest in a personal assistant. These days, MusicinOxford demos keep disappearing under sofas, behind glove compartments, into fridges, into the air, only to pop up months or even years later, like bastard sons. Local indie popsters South Parade’s debut EP has only recently surfaced, having been quietly fossilising at the bottom of my car for a number of months, so the band may now have progressed to Stockhausen or polka for all I know; still, politeness demands I review this at last.
From this evidence, South Parade are one of those bands who are in the process of forging their identity; they sound too much like their influences, which blare out, foghornlike, across most of the five tracks. Opener ‘Another Word to Say’ sounds almost exactly like The Kooks. A mate, overhearing it, generously compared it to “Good Kooks rather than Crap Kooks” which to my ears is a distinction without a difference, but it’s perky, tuneful, Radio 1-friendly, has an oddly mannered vocalist and is quite annoying. So very Kooks.
Strongest track on the record is probably ‘Home’, featuring some delicious bass playing from Josh Rigal, though it’s still overly beholden to badly-spelt minor-league English indie acts. The playing is tight and crisp, and the whole thing bounces along with a joie de vivre rather at odds with the lyric, which grumps about acquisitive teenagers, empty fridges and the sundry boredoms of suburban life. ‘Land and Sea’ starts out like a cover of ‘No One Knows’ by Queens of the Stone Age before doing a partly successful impersonation of We Are Scientists. ‘Escape’ apes The Red Hot Chili Peppers with vocalist Alex Grew even flattening his pitch, more precisely to mimic the tuneless wail of Anthony Kiedis. Time he Grew out of that particular malign influence, perhaps.
Still, it should be said that the EP is played quite regularly in my workplace, and most of the comment, last song excepted, has been favourable. Not every Oxford act should sound like Euhedral or Jonquil, and South Parade clearly have designs on a mass audience. Still, even the most cynical A and R man needs some new wrinkle, some new twist, and South Parade need to find something that is truly theirs to make them stand out in a very congested musical space. At the moment, the only thing I can suggest is a live performance featuring the band wearing nothing but strategically-placed socks. Oh, hang on…..