Street-Level Indie
Album opener 'Confidence' is a furious, dance-rock, all-out, pseudo-macho tale of clubs, dance-floors, girls and alcohol – an Artic Monkeys or The Streets style song about seeing a girl at a club and wanting to impress her. The protagonist in the song repeatedly downs "double vodkas" to build up confidence to talk to the girl he likes, but ends up drinking so much that he throws up, to the disgust of his potential acquaintance. A tale of debauchery, dark clubs and alcohol, all told in a strong Essex accent and littered with youthful, semi-yobbish colloquialisms, I want to hate this song so much. Problem is, 'Confidence' is actually a very impressive offering, truly rivalling the extreme dance-ability of drum and bass legends The Prodigy. Yet, unlike many genre stable-mates, Original Cast are also refreshingly self-derogatory, with lyrics such as, "Shit! What's going on here then?...I can't get me words out! What a mug!"
Unfortunately, track two 'Cupids Philosophy' is nowhere near as good, sounding a bit like a poor pop one-hit-wonder. The album perks up a bit by track three, "I Got in a Fight", a song of two halves, starting with a quiet piano ballad, then launching into an electric-driven breakdown. The quiet part of the song carries itself quiet well, and at times is an excellent, realistic story about a guy getting mugged at knife point. The moral of the story is questionable, as the guy decides to fight back and someone ends up getting killed, but there is a real hint of regret in the song, and you could quite believe that the story is true. The album takes another dip on 'Life', a decent song about the divide between rich and poor, with slightly trite political observations and a subtly annoying chorus. Nice to see a more intellectual topic breeched, though, and, actually, the message on 'Life' is a lot more astute than some other bands' deviations into politics. Disappointingly, Original Cast then do a nosedive on album closer 'Space Highway 99' which, frankly, is just quite an annoying song.
The first song on Original Cast's EP, 'Confidence', is genuinely rather good – but, especially after such a promising start, most of the rest of the CD is a major disappointment. 'I Got in a Fight' is a slight exception, and Original Cast's ability to weave stories in an Artic Monkeys fashion is impressive. Overall, the EP never quite recaptures the quality of that first song. However, if Original Cast could produce more songs of that quality, and if people can put up with the use of phrases such as "thought I'd breeze over" and "everybody needs to get wired", they could have something going for them.