Fake Moss - Highway Extended
Fake Moss, a band that clearly believe the unashamed pillaging of every bass line, guitar hook, synth riff and textbook moody stare from the darker side of 1980s music is the best way of showcasing one's wares to an unknown public hereby release 'Highway Extended', a quasi-single-EP-album of songs that is as confused and mixed up as it sounds.
From the U2 simulating bass line of opener 'Highway', a song containing the most cringe worthy vocals since Chad Kroeger first picked up a mic, to the final note of last track proper, 'It's You Against The City Tonight', a MOR cliché of a song, there is not one guitar riff, bass line or lyric worthy of any note at all.
While the latter-day mainstream pretenders to the '80s revival crown - The Killers and The Braverys of this world - may not be the most highly original bunch, at least they have the foresight and honest decency to mask their lack of originality with some decent pop songs. Fake Moss, unfortunately, share none of the same apathy: 'Addiction' is so bland it hurts, the keyboard refrain to 'She's Smashing The Room Again' is frankly hilarious and if you have ever come across one of those cheap TV advert re-workings of 'Light My Fire' or 'Purple Haze' then listen in sheer amazement to second song, 'Not a Place For You,' a quite literally skewered imitation of 'Just Like Heaven' by The Cure; a cheap and seedy equivalent to the euphoric gothic pop delivery of the original. The fact that the chorus then transforms itself into Duran Duran's James Bond Theme, 'A View To A Kill,' is by that point, unbelievably, not the most laughable aspect of the song.
Perhaps the saddest thing about the current industry fixation on revival trends is that truly freethinking bands are so few and far between. While bands must take influence from somewhere it is surely those that twist their influences to create something original that must deserve most credit. As a result the cream of such bands - the Bloc Parties or Interpols - then find success on their own terms. There are however a slew of others, such as Fake Moss, who unabashedly plagiarise those that came before, and while record labels continue to sign this sort of lowest common denominator trash, music will never truly progress.