Captain Phoenix • Stand By
“Stand By” is a dispassionate e-single which only reaches anything like a peak in the closing minute. Lead singer Ben Burrows manages to borrow the disinterested vocals pioneered by Ryan Jarman, but fails in his attempts to fake the Wakefield accent • Captain Phoenix are from London by the way.
All in all, it is not in any way rubbish, but sorely fails to produce anything worth listening to. It’s as if someone has gathered together a bunch of college slackers, given them instruments and told them they can have a record deal, without ever checking to see if any of them had a soul.
Essentially it is an album track, with a simple offbeat melody, generic ‘romantic’ lyrics sung in monotone and a middle 8 which comes way too late. And that’s not all; as if aware of the rubbishness of the track, they have attempted to distract our attention by giving it layered vocals, and the like. It’s too late! Take your generic crap back to college and trying and get passionate about something! Ross Fisher