All too often there are bands who think that because they've been mentioned in a magazine it means they don't actually have to do anything but stand there with their guitar looking pretty. This isn't the case tonight. After all, it is a Rock Sound tour not an NME tour. A few songs in, I begin to realise there's probably a lot of teenage angst gone into their music and it shows in their guitar and vocals. The thing is, it's just not as angry as it wants to be. It's just getting lost in the gap between melodic and shouty, in that it's not really either. Towards the end of the set, the balance between the two would have really helped them as they dedicate a song to “That bloke who came up and said …. to our bass player before the show. Don't ever say anything like that to him again”. If you're going to do something like that, what follows needs to be something that goes right through the audience: something that shows how angry you are, and sadly for all the moody faces on stage, the music never did that. The foundations are there for them to be a good band and they do have some energy. It just isn't what it's trying to be.

Finally, it's the turn of tonight's headliner - Leeds' very own Dinosaur Pile-Up. Although you wouldn't know it from the audience, who tonight seem unusually reserved in comparison to the usual lairy Yorkshire crowd. Even the band comment on the massive gaps people are leaving, and even resort to offering free beer for the first person to reach the front from the furthest away. A few songs in though and everyone seems to have warmed to them a bit more, people are nodding their heads and tapping their feet and tonight it seems that's the most anybody is getting from this crowd. Despite the crowd however, the band are battling on. They're trying to involve people; they're trying to make it fun for everyone. They shouldn't really need to though. The material from the new album should be enough to get everyone moving, with songs as catchy as “Never That Together” and “Mona Lisa” that sound like Nirvana with a bit of Feeder thrown in for good measure. It won't change the world but it's worth a listen.

Charly Murgatroyd

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