The Morning
Liquid Cocaine EP
Coming off the back of a string of favourable live reviews, ‘Liquid Cocaine’ is Southampton based band, The Morning’s, first release and not bad it is too.
The six track EP opens with the corking ‘Ew Ey Ah Ew’. Despite the clearly Teletubby-inspired title, this is a great little song combining a Stokes style sound with some quality vocals, pitched somewhere between Eddy Vedder and Kurt Cobain. The simple, clean sound of both guitar and bass gives a freshness to the track which lasts right up to the rocked up outro.
However, the vocals are the real gem here as John Vernam’s vox, while quite minimal, manages to work perfectly with the retro sounding tunes. Even the fact that the chorus line sounds like it was sung by the Fast Show’s, Bob Fleming and friends, doesn’t diminish the quality of this tune at all.
With such a good track to follow, it is no surprise that ‘In Odio’ doesn’t quite make it into the same league (apologies for any misspelling of title). However, that is not to say it is a bad track at all, as the bass and guitar lines entwine themselves brilliantly to create some atmospheric tempo changes, all held together nicely by the drums. The chorus is solid enough with its good lyrical hooks, as is the instrumental bridge, but it’s the forgettable verses that ultimately leave the song sounding somewhat flat.
‘Great Adversity’ is also song that promises much. The gentle melancholic guitar intro builds gradually with the introduction of vocals, then the drums and guitar, followed by an uptempo change with a final addition of an overdriven guitar. It’s all quite epic in nature however, at only just over 2 minutes, it is far too short for a tune of such great potential.
‘The High Octave’ carries on the melancholy theme, only this time with a much more sinister guitar line. Powerful in places and darn right scary in others, this is an angst-ridden story of a dangerous woman told by the rejected man.
The mood is then changed again with the acoustic driven ‘Siloet’. This is a much lighter tune, which again allows Vernam’s vocals to shine through with more good lyrical hooks. However, confusion set in towards the end of the song when, what appears to be just over a minute of a Young Ones sketch, arrives stapled on the end. I’m sure there is probably a point to this somewhere but unfortunately it skipped me by.
The EP closes with top rocking title track ‘Liquid Cocaine’. The tempo is lifted right up, the guitar gets its long overdue overdrive and the bass takes on a Muse-like quality especially during the verses. Again there is down tempo instrumental break, which gradually builds the volume back up to the end of the track, but this doesn’t seem at all out of place.
Overall ‘Liquid Cocaine’ is really quite an accomplished piece of work for what is a young band. The songwriting skills show promise and the raw musical talent of each musician clearly shines through. Maybe not as intense as their live shows, ‘Liquid Cocaine’ is nevertheless a good representation of a band who are no doubt going places.
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Written by Habert on
