MUSIC REVIEW :: Doncaster’s In Fear of Olive’s release triumphant Ep Saluting Magpies.
I’ve had these tunes in my possession for a few weeks now with every intention of writing a review but as life is good I’ve spent very little time sat in front of this damn screen – today however, after my umpteenth listen I’m compelled to put pixels to screen for this review, because – it’s good! Really good!
Roseanne’s Town opens the show with understated guitar twang but soon builds to a Sprinsteen-esque heights of layered guitar and horns. Quite trad americana in places it still has English quirks to latch onto. I’m bucking the trend here and avoiding mentioning Mumford & Sons… shit! never again…
“…raising a middle digit to bands without their staying power.”
Saluting Magpies shuffles into earshot next and skips, jumps, shouts, rattles and bawls around for close to five minutes but you’d never know. With so many time changes, production subtleties and changes in direction it’s a really nice piece of songwriting raising a middle digit to bands without their staying power.
Maybe it’s the change to electric from acoustic but the band have certainly turned everything up to match the new sound. Arv is a hell of a drummer but he now gets to hit harder which really adds to the amplified sound with Jake stretching his vocal chords into a growl that their previous gentle meanderings would not have coped with.
The next track up is Beast in name only, a gentle vocal led acoustic track owing more than a nod to of Dylan, Buckley and Drake.
Mountebank takes a step back into the land acoustic but is no less immediate, building very quickly and wasting no time with a drawn out intro. All the band’s voices blend in fine style for the obligatory ‘shoop shoops’ and this EP is brought to a fitting close.
It might be a bit early in the game for matching iFoo scarf and t-shirt but I’m on board. The folk that have this EP have it on heavy rotation, so do yourself a flavour and get on the wagon.
Official site: http://ifoo.get-ctrl.com
Label: Wire Sound / http://www.wire-sound.com
Recorded by: Keith Angel @ http://www.wavelengthstudios.co.uk
