Welcome to the first ever Face The Jury where we pick a random selection of tracks from our pile of emails and get a random pick of our staff to let you know their thoughts, whether that be utterly amazing, or damn right awful.
Will we find some incredible talent, or will we have scraped the floor of the music bin? Let’s find out and make sure to vote on our poll at the bottom to let us know which track you thought was the best.
So without further ado, let’s take a listen to the selection. Time to face the jury!
Silent Party – Remember Your Strategies
Link: https://www.facebook.com/silentpartyuk
Martin McDonnell: “Well wasn’t that rather enjoyable. It’s not trailblazing but it does its indie thing pretty darn well.” – 4/5
Chris Hines: “Sounds like the kind of track that should be on every Indie club-night’s playlist. A solid slice of indie goodness” – 4/5
James Matthews: “Silent Alarm + Bloc Party = Silent Party. Flashbacks of mid-00’s indie charm with a somewhat contemporary relevance, and a smidge of new wave. Vibing with this!” – 3.5/5
Mitch Emery: “Not good. Not bad. Sounds like the definition of generic indie. Pleasant enough to hear, but nothing really stuck out to show a long life-span. A pleasant, radio friendly, but ultimately forgettable tune.” – 3/5
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Ghost Suns – Stay
Link: https://www.facebook.com/ghostsuns
Martin McDonnell: “‘I’m normally a little suspicious of anything that primarily comprises of noises on sample pads. But it’s not bad at all. There’s a hint of Karen O in the vocals, although perhaps the electronic parts could have been toned back a tad instead of overwhelming the whole track.” – 3/5
Chris Hines: “It’s nothing ground-breaking but not a bad track by any means. I can imagine with cleaner production this would pack more of a punch” – 2.5/5
James Matthews: “Ghost Suns seem to have done OK on their first single, but that is it. So much work to be done to make it more listenable and interesting, they just need to find and craft their sound a bit more.” – 2/5
Mitch Emery: “Bloody Hell, has the 80’s come back to haunt us? This one is somewhere between the Eurythmics and Hot Chip as fronted by a particularly bored sounding lady. Has a few nice ideas, but doesn’t seem to do very much in the way of development throughout its short length.” – 2/5
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DF3 – City Lights
Link: https://www.facebook.com/df3music
Martin McDonnell: “Oooh handclaps! The first signifier of happy songs. It starts alright before sounding way too claustrophobic in the chorus. I almost felt I’d got trapped into a demonic version of sonic the hedgehog” – 2.5/5
Chris Hines: “I really like the 80’s vibe on this. I can almost imagine this as the end credits to something like Flashdance. I feel my body wanting to throw some incredible shapes. One for my personal playlist for sure!” – 4/5
James Matthews: “City Lights sounds like one of the tracks left on the backburner of the Miami Vice soundtrack. Totally getting the synth-pop realisation and musical angle for what they are trying to achieve, but it doesn’t really hit the spot.” – 2/5
Mitch Emery: “How very cheerful, hand claps and singing about a night on the town! Feels like a cross between Electric Six and The Village people, with a healthy swig of this ‘techno’ all the kids seem to like.” – 2.5/5
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https://soundcloud.com/electro/3some-3rd-eye-edm-com-premiere
3some – 3rd Eye
Link: https://www.facebook.com/WeAre3Some
Martin McDonnell: “Is this kind of Americanized EDM still popular? Adding orchestration doesn’t radically overhaul a sound that is designed for when you’re too fucked to care about anything but how loud the bass is…Just saying” – 1/5
Chris Hines: “This actually surprised me at first. The tracks introduction, with its almost tribal ping pong, followed by its big orchestral strings, really built the track up and I was quite excited to see where it was going to go. Unfortunately it seemed this was the only glimpse of these strings we were going to get and, although overall it’s still a fairly good track, you couldn’t help but feel like it could have been even better. The potential is there though so keep the tracks coming!” – 3/5
James Matthews: “Heavily compressed EDM combined with some of the ‘in thing’ orchestral strings to add for ‘classic’ effect, something that seems to be a fad with the current wave of EDM at the moment. Nothing new, nothing innovative, probably good if you are peaking on pills at a club.” – 1.5/5
Mitch Emery: “I’d like to start by saying that listening to Martin on matters of EDM is a bad idea. He’s a little to indie for it… Not enough Cardigans and references to (the amazing) Jarvis Cocker for his Libertines stained mind to compute. This is a solid piece of electro, with a build up that is both musically interesting and dynamic, before a suitably growling bass line” – 4/5
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIOwuWo2ML8&feature=youtu.be
Coley – Sushi
Link: https://www.facebook.com/officialcoley
Martin McDonnell: “Seriously Mr Coley? Do your parents know this is how you wasted your trust fund? Misogynistic, dumb…and a little bit racist. I’m not entirely sure what end of parody this is supposed to be, but it falls way short. Sushi makes blurred lines look like puppy love… And for that reason I’m out!” – 0/5
Chris Hines: “I’m a bit stuck on what to say. It’s like a low-budget Macklemore I guess, but I can’t work out if this is serious or not?” – 2/5
James Matthews: “No mate, stop it. Sushi is supposed to be appetising, this isn’t, nor is it remotely funny. Although the girl at 1:20 is pretty cute, the only redeeming factor about this.” – 1/5
Mitch Emery: “Please say this a joke! It wouldn’t be a funny one, but at least it could be passed off as an attempt at humour. Blatant misogyny and hints of racism make up ‘Sushi’ and, for the foreseeable future, has ruined one of my favourite foods. Shame on you sir. SHAME ON YOU!” – 0/5 (this changes to -1/5 if I still can’t face eating sushi in a week’s time)
