Floorless - A Lot To Learn
Floorless are a young five-piece from Farnham, Surrey, setting out their stall in this three-track EP on small UK indie label Horsepower.
Opener (and presumably lead single) ‘Not So Sweet’ features a lot of that distinctive going-slightly-too-fast-for-itself squiggly lead guitar that marks a band out as Libertines acolytes. This is an ode to a “not so sweet” sixteen year old love-interest, and features energetic (if a little bombastic) vocals. It rattles along pretty well, but suffers from the same failing as the other two tracks here: unnecessary prolonging by means of speed, tempo and rhythm changes. Whilst clearly done with the intent of adding interest and variety, it instead actually makes the tracks lose a bit of their momentum, and makes all three seem a bit more “dragged out” than they otherwise would.
The Libertines influence is even more marked on ‘Draw Me In’, the opening jangle of which sounds very close to the opening of ‘Can’t Stand Me Now’, but the song quickly develops into another runaway rollicker, albeit with pretty nonsensical lyrics (“Don’t think twice / Roll the dice / For the night [or this could be “knife”] / X marks the spot”, etc). More interesting than either of these is the last track ‘Impressions’, which has a more jerky, spiky, almost post-punk feel to it, and is perhaps an indication of the direction in which the band ought to be moving.
Taken in its totality, this EP represents a solid first step for a band that is presumably still developing and finding their own sound. A little less of the standard albion-indie and a little more of the impressionistic complexities and their next recordings could be well worth revisiting.