The Days - 'No Ties'
Y'know, the most unsettling thing about watching TV shows like Channel 4's Unsigned Act thing - apart from the yawning gulf between what bands are like when they play music to enjoy themselves and what bands are like when they play music in order to get a record deal - is that it shows you what life might be like in an alternate reality.
Not in a Philip Pullman, Dark Materials sense, where evolution is run differently and some animals have wheels, the really freaky stuff happens when you see the effect last year's musical influences are having on this year's bands. Like the band who demonstrates what the Kooks would be like if their singer had been born with a better voice, but was worse at songwriting. Or another band who come on like the Ting Tings and then play like 50 Cent.
It plays havoc with your reference points, and can be terribly confusing.
It's almost the same as the real thing, but it's the tiny differences which set them furthest apart.
And so it goes with the Days, a bunch of likeable Devon kids with immaculate rock-pop reference points. Their big push for chart status comes complete with a Fratellis swagger, some McFly melodic niceness (although lacking the citrous tang of Tom Fletcher's finest moments), and those shouty backing vocals that the Pigeon Detectives use quite often.
But that's not necessarily a bad thing, of course, it's just weird seeing these little musical tricks coming out of unfamiliar faces.
Having said that, this would be well on course for another ChartBlog 4-star backslap, were it not for singer Luke's over-zealous mooing - I know it's your first single, fella, but calm down. You don't have to empahasise EVERYTHING - and the grammar nightmare of the chorus, which goes "how does it feel like to be like you?" It should be "what does it feel like to be like you?" or "how does it feel to be like you?", as any fule kno.
Unless, of course, that's the way grammar works in whatever dimension the Days come from, in which case it's totally fine.
Download: Out now
CD Released: January 26th
(Fraser McAlpine)
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