These Mancunians have been pegged as gutter rock’n’rollers with a Mötley Crüe vibe, but they’re more radio-friendly sleaze than raucous cock rock.
It’s a shame that they chose the seriously commercial Our City Sleeps as the album’s first single: it’s essentially an over-produced mediocre pop-rock anthem, with an ‘emotional’ [read: emo] polished power chorus. They would have been wiser to choose the album opener and title track as the first taster instead, with its gigantic riffs and raw, 80s swagger.
Overall the album varies between attitude-fuelled party tunes with massive – if mainstream – riffs and hooks, and warbles of emo-tastic singalongs akin to those of My Chemical Romance or Lostprophets.
Because of this, there’s no doubt that angsty teenagers will eat up this unpretentious piece of pop rock. Whether others will be as welcoming is the question.
