We'll Live and Die in These Towns

So far so good

Taking into consideration the entire mass of young indie bands that flooded the music market with their debut albums this year it will be safe to say that the road to success won’t be easy for The Enemy regardless the quality of their debut attempt. The Enemy are another promising indie rock act from England inspired by Oasis and The Jam. Generally the history of indie bands distinguishes with a rapid raise of their fame but The Enemy became one of the quickest. They’ve come out of obscurity only last year but they have already toured across the country as a supporting band for Ash, Manic Street Preachers and Kasabian and released four singles that took pretty high positions in UK charts. In a word, so far so good. Their debut album We’ll Live And Die In These Towns has already became number one in the UK album chart and the band’s future looks sunny and unclouded. But for how long? In our days when a number of young stars of British scene exceed all the logic limits it won’t be that easy to stay atop. However it all refers to the future battles, today We’ll Live And Die In These Towns is on the agenda so any suppositions about future events must be made after acquaintance of it.

Sign of future victories

The opinion after first listening: the band definitely has a talent but it is not developed yet. The production work is pretty digestible and even well turned, although it is still early to talk about uniqueness of the sound. The material sounds amazingly good. Considering that the musicians are still in their late teens – this is a striking fact. Usually it takes people at least few years to learn doing something attractive without outside assistance. This is probably the main indication of the band’s future victories. Listen to the title track We’ll Live And Die In These Towns, it’s not the most characteristic song of the album but it can reveal the essence of The Enemy from a proper perspective. The arrangements are of mediocre quality but the song itself has both its face and mood. The vocal melodies should be mentioned as the leading force of the album. They really help when introduction or any other voiceless piece of the song becomes annoying, although it doesn’t happen all the time, a song called Technodanceaphobia for instance, is a case of an opposite character, here everything is based on a jumpy guitar riff. However the merits of lead vocalist and the only guitarist of the band Tom Clarke are undeniable, he sounds quite competent and appropriately copes with his duties of the band’s face.

Lack of unique sound

The albums’ best songs are singles, We’ll Live And Die In These Towns is not that album where filler songs may outstrip main tracks. But there are many of them: Had Enough, Away From Here, You’re Not Alone, It’s Not Ok and 40 Days And 40 Nights. All of them sound sufficiently solid and strong, You’re Not Alone sounds especially good – this is definitely best song of the album. Yet, despite big number of substantial advantages the album’s disadvantages are still obvious. The band suffers lack of the sound they could call their own. The Enemy remind you somebody else too often be it heroes of the past The Jam or contemporaries Kasabian. Perhaps many people won’t like the band’s guideline oriented on early Oasis, which is appreciably dominating on this album. In a word, The Enemy do not offer nothing cardinally new here but still We’ll Live And Die In These Towns sounds really good, especially as a debut album. There is a shadow of naivety here but on the other hands it helps to make it easier to understand. Interesting ideas and melodies are floating on the surface almost in every track. Overall, the band has a big potential and all chances to become real indie stars in the nearest future.