Written
15th April 2013:
The
Bedroom Hour – X Marks the Spot
The Band: Stu
Drummond (lead vocals), Rob Payne (guitar), Dan Rider (bass), Mark Dudley (keyboards),
Lewis Cosham (drums)
Right
ok, so today’s review comes from an up-and-coming London-based band I’ve been
following on Twitter for some time now @thebedroomhour and with the band soon
to release their debut EP, I’ve decided now would be a good time to review some
of the tracks made available on their website (www.thebedroomhour.com),
as the band captures a nice, haunting, guitar sound of which I’m sure regular
readers may well enjoy. So today’s
review covers ‘X Marks the Spot’ and a few other tracks from the website of The
Bedroom Hour.
X Marks
the Spot
1. X Marks the Spot
2. Nocturnal
3. Submarine
4. Shadow Boxer
Opening
with a nice, gentle guitar riff and up-beat percussion ‘X Marks the Spot’ see
the band open with the haunting guitar sound hinted at earlier, before we first
catch lead-singer Stu Drummonds softly-sung but immediately distinct vocals for
the first time. The track is clearly
loving crafted as it gently burns into the soul of the listener with an
ever-building guitar melody and a strong chorus “Cross my heart and hope to die/I promise to love you more than my life/If
X marks the spot/Then let’s cross the heart”, as Stu shows a real depth to
his vocal range throughout the track.
It’s a nice debut track, featuring a nice rocky guitar solo midway
through the track and overall this reminds me a bit in sound of U2 from their
‘Joshua Tree’ era and to a lesser extent the sound captured by The Editors on
their debut album ‘The Back Room’.
Up
next we have ‘Nocturnal’, which also features a gentle yet distinct guitar-riff
from Rob playfully accompanied by keys from Mark, forming the main basis of the
rhythm for the track. Again backed with
up-beat percussion and Stu’s softly sung vocals, the track features a nice
chorus “See the satellites/Lie awake at
night/Now I’ve become nocturnal/Sleep through the day/Just to get away/From the
thought of you with someone” and despite what seems a downbeat chorus, the
track overall has much more of an upbeat tempo and melody to it as a whole and
as such is quite an uplifting track.
‘Submarine’ is a beautifully, slow ballad by the band. With heart-felt, haunting keyboards at the
heart of the track, it really creates a deep, captivated melancholy atmosphere
of its own and really reminded me of the type of classic sound captured from
early Coldplay album ‘Parachutes’. It’s
a beautiful track and really caught my attention upon first listen.
Closing
track ‘Shadow Boxer’ opens with modest percussion and a moody, tingling guitar
rhythm as the first part of the track is virtually an instrumental with the
guitar rhythm building as a whole. As
the track picks up full pace we hear Stu’s powerful vocals again with the
repeated line midway through “Tell me
what you see/Tell me what you see/Tell me what you see when you look at
yourself and see the enemy”. It’s another
track by the band that slowly builds and creates an atmosphere before building
to a powerful crescendo, there is plenty here to like.
So
in closing, I’ve been impressed with these four tracks made available on the
band’s website. At present I think
early, fair comparisons to the sound of The Bedroom Hour could be made to
early-era Coldplay and Elbow in particular but there is no mistake the band
have their own, very defined unique sound, Stu’s voice needs to be heard to be
believed, he has a very powerful range.
The band have a got a few upcoming gigs at 229 The Venue in London soon,
the next of which is 17th May to support their forthcoming debut EP, so feel
free to get along and check them out as I think this band have a lot of
potential and have them marked down as one to watch out for in the future!
Shadow
Boxer
Flynny
X
Marks the Spot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf2D5JC-GmE
Band
website:
http://www.thebedroomhour.com 