Anyone who knows me will know how much of a massive Tall Ships fan I am but even that wasn’t enough for me to like their last single and I was left proclaiming that despite the brilliance of their first two EPs, maybe the band had lost their way.
T=0, the first single from their forthcoming debut album (finally!) goes some way to alleviating any doubts I had about the band going off the boil and the album being a complete disaster. It’s based around one single riff repeated over and over, you know…just in case you wanted it stuck in your head for the rest of the day. It’s a bit Cave In or a bit Biffy Clyro, and yet there is something reminiscent of Joy Division, although I can’t quite put my finger on why that is. It isn’t until one and a half minutes in, the half way mark on the single, when the riff drops out and the instantly recognisable vocals come in and it actually starts sounding like Tall Ships of old with emotionally insightful lyrics, before the riff comes back in just to make sure that Rihanna‘s Umbrella or Britney Spears‘ Womaniser doesn’t manage to worm its melody back in your head over the sound of this brilliantly distorted riff.
T=0 sounds to me like the mark of a band growing again. From their self titled EP to the There Is Nothing But Chemistry Here EP the band changed three fold, and T=0 sounds very much like a band progressing, a band maturing, and I have to say that having heard this, I have high expectations that the album will be in my top ten of the year.
[rating: 4]
http://wearetallships.co.uk/
