Band Name: Fire Assassins

Myspace: www.myspace.com/fireassassins

Reviewer: Keef

Review:

‘Restless Heart’ - ‘Fire Assasins’ describe their varied influences as being mostly 80s era – ranging from Metallica to Rick Springfield. ‘Restless Heart’ opens up like a tribute to The Cranberries or even The Corrs, with a very tuneful, if a little light, acoustic guitar and violin intro. Not a bad start, but not really ‘rock’ music…..

And then it all goes a bit early 70s. Now – again, that’s no bad thing, but the vocals sound like someone who’s trying to do a really poor Chris DeBurgh impression for a laugh – only thing is, I think it’s supposed to be a serious vocal melody. At over 7 minutes, this track just drags on too long.

‘Do You Remember’ - is a different kettle of fish entirely. OK, so it’s ’80s rock by numbers’ and entirely predictable, but I guess that’s half the charm of that type of music in the first place – it’s instantly recogniseable. I have to say the vocals are a huge improvement on this track, maybe it’s a pitching thing, but it’s far less forced and actually not that bad.

‘Midnight’ is more of the same. Predictable 80s rock. It has the same ‘charm’ as the previous track – but fails again on the strained vocals and being overly long. There’s a great solo and melody change towards the end of the track, but after that ‘high’, it just repeats the original riff for another minute and kind of kills the interest that the solo brought to the track.

‘Keep Christmas Alive in your Heart’. This is a terrible track – sorry guys, but it’s just not even good in a bad way. The Darkness kind of got away with a cheesy Festive song, but you’re not The Darkness. If for no other reason than the appalling wailing that is being passed off as ‘vocals’, you need to get rid of this track, as it really shows off all your bad points……

‘Outside Looking In’ – yet more rock by numbers. Sorry – but it’s getting quite tedious now and the vocals – well, they’re just getting progressively flatter and sounding more like the worst of (insert reality TV ‘talent’ show here). Another one for the bin.

‘Turn Away’. OK – what a great start! LOVE the opening to this track, as it at least shows some thought – but it then just falls apart in a big way.
We’ve now moved to ‘rock ballad by numbers’ – with ‘backing vocals’. I’m deliberately steering away from calling them ‘vocal harmonies’, because they are neither of those things. I’ve no idea whether this is both parties wailing away or a bit of double tracking, but it’s painful to say the least.
‘Turn Away’ is aptly named for reviewers – because that’s what most people will do listening to this.

‘Long Way Back’ - another pleasantly constructed 80s inspired rock by numbers track – offering nothing new and completely ruined by the vocals…..

There’s quite obviously one talented musician in this group, which makes the fact that there’s some painfully out of tune vocals on these tracks unforgiveable.

Keef

Band Name: My Heroine.

Myspace: www.myspace.com/myheroinemusic

Reviewer: Keef

My Heroine

Review:

There’s no doubt that this is a group of good looking girls, but ugly people can make good records too………..

So – what about the music?

The songs on the website are only excerpts – so hopefully they’ve chosen them wisely, as that’s what the review is based on.

‘Mad’ starts nicely enough, but I can’t help feeling that it doesn’t go anywhere in the chorus, such are the lack of dynamics in the song – shame – with some thought it could have been a nice song. (Don’t you love the word ‘nice’? Only used here to spite my primary school teachers who didn’t even believe it was a proper word!)

‘Let it Go’ has ’studio track’ written all over it! It sounds like a bunch of one line vocals cut and pasted over a backing track. Maybe I’m being harsh, but I’d imagine the ‘cut down’ version that the band would have to perform live would have been a better effort to record than this overly complex version of what is quite a simple tune. Less is more guys – live vocals have far more feel than trying to get every line pitch perfect!

‘Infatuation’ GET IN!! Finally the engineer realises where the bass sliders are and/or decides to mic up the bass amp! This has got far more body to it, and the chorus finally shows the vocals off. I’m still not loving the feeling that some of the vocals have been dubbed a line at a time, as it really detracts from any sort of ‘live’ feel – but overall, this is a vast improvement!

‘Bitch’ - couple of bits of wayward pitching – which is odd considering the care that is obviously given to the vocal recording otherwise – but it’s still a decent enough track that has the potential to really rock in the chorus – I can imagine that this would be a great track live.

‘Fever’ - an old classic with a pretty reasonable twist. The production is far better on this track – so I’m guessing that this is/was the track designed to grab commercial interest. I’m still not crazy about all the overlaid vocals, but if it can be reproduced on stage, then consider me a fan!

Overall – think Strawberry Switchblade and you won’t be far off the mark.
It’s hardly original, but I’ve heard far worse from far uglier people……

I’d certainly like to go and see these live, as I reckon the studio perhaps isn’t doing them justice……

Keef