Radford is a band that confuses me.<\/p>\n
On one hand, their self-titled debut release has the quirky
\nsound of late-’70s bands that is both hard to pin down and is quite
\nappealing to my ear. On the other hand, it almost sounds like I’m
\nlistening to the love child of The Stone Roses, Oasis and The
\nCharlatans UK with the overlapping guitar and vocal work. The end
\nresult is still a very listenable album, though you might find your
\nhead spinning by the end.<\/p>\n
The band – vocalist\/guitarist Jonny Mead, guitarist\/vocalist
\nChris Hower, bassist\/vocalist Bobby Stefano and drummer\/vocalist
\nKane McGee – obviously know how to write decent songs; this is
\nevident throughout
\nRadford<\/i>. Tracks like “Don’t Stop,” “Come On,” “Over You” and
\n“Ash In My Life” all appeal to the listener’s emotions and senses
\nin a unique way. But often I found myself wondering, “Is this
\nreally Oasis without the heavy accents?” There is a touch of the
\nBritpop
\nwunderkids<\/i> in Radford’s music, but not so much that you
\nwould scream “copycat”.<\/p>\n
Instead, Radford seems to draw their musical inspiration from
\ngroups like The Stone Roses and The Charlatans UK, both of whom
\nseemed to perfect the layered sound of guitar armies and vocals.
\nRadford has learned these lessons, though the occasional feedback
\nweirdness in “You’ve Got Friends” threatens to take the listener
\nout of the mix far too early. I hadn’t recovered from that even by
\nthe time I got through the second track “Closer To Myself”.<\/p>\n
But where Radford do inject their own signature into the mix is
\nwhen there is an acoustic vein thrown into the pot. Tracks like
\n“Fly” and “How Does It Feel?” greatly benefit from this twist, and
\nit allows some fresh air to come into the project. If anything,
\nthese breaks help to rejuvanate the music, and tracks like “Stand
\nOn The Moon” and “Overflow” seem to be more palatable.<\/p>\n
\nRadford<\/i> is by no means a bad album, nor is Radford a bad
\ngroup. There is a lot of promise that this quartet has in store,
\nand it will be fun to follow them throughout their career. But
\nwhile their first album is still a pleasant enough listen, it
\nalmost feels like they took the safe route with it – and if I were
\nmaking my living as a musician, I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same
\nthing. This is still a disc worth checking out, especially if you
\nlike late-’80s Britpop with a twist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6326],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-36613","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-radford","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36613"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36613"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}