Review of The Music Roll Exchange's CD "Untitled"

The Music Roll Exchange: Untitled

The Music Roll Exchange (North London with Huddersfield connections) have their chief blurb-writer primed to start abbreviating the name (they shall be known as TMRE) before anybody has heard of their carefully chosen long name. So that's ominous. And someone on the onemusic website said they were "mightily impressed with TMRE's lyrical style".

The demo has four well-recorded songs from a pretty average Britpop throwback, with a fair shot at an early Gallagher voice from writer/singer/leader Alan Convy. The slight swagger in the lyrics don't quite ring true though - the exaggerated club singer vowels and naff lines like "high class totty" come think and fast. The "Message in a Bottle" guitar riff gets an outing in "The Madness". Which is nice. So does a whole slew of guitar phrases from the pre-1980 rock scales training ground. Which isn't. Track 4 ("Feel the Sun") has a lovely six note guitar phrase surrounded by 3 minutes 26 of pretend pop/rock music. "Saturday Night" sounds interesting when it imitates Oasis (but not very) and goes tedious in the chorus. Alan sings "every dog has its day", and "the crowd cries out for more". Sorry to interject, but bugger me with a fire hydrant if I haven't heard lines like that somewhere before. Best bit is the stinging guitar intro on "The Madness". Shame that it leads straight into the worlds third most commonly played guitar riff.

So, it's plunder the might-as-well-be-dead time. And stick it all back together in shapeless sacks of nothing much to write home about.

• www.geocities.com/musicrollexchange

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