Saw Point

The last Oxfordbands review I posted had a stupid pun about Gok Wan in the title. Later that night I had to write a new review, & Mr W popped into my head again, so into the review he went. Wouldn't be a problem, if I hadn't mentioned him again at a barbecue on Sunday, now my wife thinks I have a strange obsession with the man! In a bid to put this unhealthy fixation behind me, here is the latest Oxfordbands review.

MODERN CLICHES – YOU GOT TO TELL ME/THE SAME PLACE (Crash Records)

The band’s called Modern Cliches but, to be frank, the cliches they trade in are pretty threadbare. This young band may have a selling point, but it’s not modernity, that’s for damned sure; if these guys are modern, then we can expect to see Gok Wan parading round prime time in an Elizabethan ruff and codpiece combo any day now. So, OK, they may not be startlingly original, and they may not be any where near the cutting edge (or even in the same cutlery drawer), but this is far from an unpleasant little record.

Modern Cliches’ reference points - or should we say, theft victims - are they same as they have been for the rest of the band’s existence, from back in the days when they were misguidedly known as Inacun (which is only a letter or so away from being rather rude…like Gok Wan). The Jam are clearly writer Phil Warson’s gods, with perhaps some place in the lower pantheon for The Beatles (non-experimental mood) and The Kinks (early material only). Every little rhythmic twitch and shudder on “You Got To Tell Me” has The Jam smeared all over it, and is thus chunky but satisfying, like crinkle-cut chips. The melody line is pleasant, rather than striking, but the trio band manage to come up with enough breaks and developments to hold interest, without over-balancing what’s a nice, compact little pop song.

“The Same Place” fares slightly less well, mostly because the vocal doesn’t really have the emotional punch to pull off the melancholic verse melody, nor the intimate doo-wop nods in the chorus.It’s not a bad tune, but rather runs out of ideas half way though and lumbers out of frame with some pretty leaden chords, and resolutely unrocking cymbal crashes. Still, we’d give this a grudging thumbs up, if it weren’t for the line,

As you breathe out the steam out of your mouth
Lets you know that you’re a reflection of the weather,

which not only does some pretty severe grammatical GBH to the language, but also confuses steam with water vapour, before wrapping it all up with an unfathomable bit of guff poetry.

Modern Cliches are an enjoyable band live, with a no frills approach to pop similar to that peddled by the slightly more well known Vultures, but this single hasn’t caught much of that. Too polite to be joyful pop, too simple to be muso rock, and too lumpy to be drivetime MOR, this record never really finds its place. Would it be painfully predictable if we said they should aim for the former category, get hopped up on strong coffee and cheap schnapps and record their next record in a haunted basement at double speed? Hmmm, cliches all round, it would appear.