One Night Only - Started A Fire
In the picture on the back of their first album, ‘One Night Only’ are dressed like just about every other underage rock band in the country. Four of them are looking at the camera and leaning against a brick wall and bollards. The other one is exhibiting the ineffable depth which makes him a natural songwriter, by being distracted by something just off camera more interesting than promoting his band’s music.
That is if that one is frontman George Craig, whose lyrics are full confusing images of fires, fresh starts and unattainable girls. Like the others, he has ransacked his dad’s wardrobe and replicated the haircut of his student days. They borrow their image just as they’ve borrowed an album.
There isn’t a track called ‘Started A Fire’. The phrase is part of the lyric of ‘He’s There’, which is itself impossibly vague. It could be about the singer’s complicated relationship with a girl or, just as likely, it could be about the complicated relationship with their fans the band imagine they will have with their fans after the album has been a success.
That leap of imagination is greater than the effort they put into making it. Consider the titles of the songs. There’s a piece of advice (Stay At Home), an order (Hide), a reassurance (It’s Alright), a metaphor (Sweet Sugar) and a command that’s a bit friendlier than the earlier one (Start Over).
It’s like the band wrote the track listing before any music or lyrics in a bid to not do the same song ten times over only to fail miserably. There are no ballads or anthems. There are just the same variations done each time in a different order. If one track starts with a guitar solo, you know the next one will have its guitar solo somewhere near the end.
‘One Night Only’ are part of the growing scene of guitars bands thought of as British because they don’t obviously want to be American. The brick wall they’re leaning against in that photo is an estate that looks as British as fish and chips or the Libertines. It’s a lot easier than it looks and about as easy as it sounds. ‘One Night Only’ will have to move over once the next similar group come along., which will be sooner than you think.