East Island City

Me And What Army?

Written by: TL on 29/08/2012 12:27:14

Is it just me, or is it not often that we hear of any good new rock bands coming out of Ireland? Regardless, East Island City is a quartet from Dublin and judging from their recently released EP "Me And What Army", they aim to be one good band that you do in fact hear about. To accomplished this, they've assembled five cuts and a bonus track of bright, light, soaring pop-rock that should easily remind listeners of contemporaries like Twin Atlantic due to the similarity between the nasal vocal styles of TA's Sam McTrusty and EIC's own Greg McLoughlin.

The good news for EIC is that their EP has the sound that you'll recognise immediately as the sort that belongs to a band that has a good thing building. The kind where you think to yourself that if these guys are currently an unnoticed small scale band, then there's pretty much no way they stay like that for very long. For that their material is just flat out too engaging and has too much of a penchant for easy catchyness, showcased especially in "No Tomorrow", "You Are The Light" and the bonus track "Nobody's Gonna Miss Us".

The bad news is that on closer inspection, it's hard to find much of an edge to EIC's sound. Things here are wide-eyed and poppy and those interested in larger variations in depth, weight and energy will not find much here. The expression is kept neat, polished and accessible, and as a result, a sceptical mind could be tempted to label East Island City as a band restricted in a role as sort of a poor man's Snow Patrol.

This is an early work by the band however, so there's plenty of time for them to develop a more characteristic personality yet, and meanwhile, the tunes they have offered are both accessible, enjoyable and respectable. Surely they're more than strong enough for what I'm sure is their purpose: Forming a platform for the band to play some good shows on and get some attention as they try to spread their name. So then, this review in a sentence: East City Island are catchy, but they need more edge to get reviewers flying out of their chairs.

7

Download: No Tomorrow, Nobody's Gonna Miss Us, You Are The Light
For The Fans Of: Twin Atlantic, Snow Patrol, Kids In Glass Houses
Listen: facebook.com/eastislandcity

Release Date 30.04.2012
Self-Released

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