Elly Roberts reviews
Morning Runner: Wilderness Is Paradise Now
Distributed by
Parlophone (EMI)
- Cat.no: 3560972
- Released: March 2006
- Rating: 4/10
With most of the recent music cred coming from 'up north',
Reading's Morning Runner debut album is hardly going to raise a challenge to the likes of the
Kaisers or Arctic Monkeys.
Most of the power stuff is of no real musical
significance (it's been done before and failed miserably), though they
might fare better with melodic offerings, such as the tender Hold Your
Breath. There's a small glimmer of promise, though that's probably due to
Coldplay piano influences heard on Burning Bridges. High tempo blasts - Have
Good Time, Gone Up In Flames don't have hit making qualities: the soaring
Great Escape and jaunty Punching Walls might, at a stretch, prove otherwise.
The lyrical content may bare difficult issues, but the music is nowhere near
challenging enough to make them a super-group of the future.
One standout feature is Matthew Greener's adaptable vocal style, flexible
enough to handle the rough and tumble with their softer leanings - closer
Best For You is definitely the best song here.
To date, overall songwriting is average at best, so they're a long
way-off competing with the better bands.
As yet, they haven't developed their individuality which they'll
to need to make a lasting impression, in what is an already
cluttered music scene of ubiquitous bands.
No gongs at next year's Brits and NME awards I'm afraid.
The full list of tracks included are :
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
Review & concert pics copyright © Elly Roberts, 2004-2008.
