Giving You An Appetite For More
With two years under their belt along with two EP's to their name, Leeds four piece Club Smith have been slowly and steadily cutting their indie rock teeth and now having found their feet, the quartet have set about releasing their debut album. Fused with electro beats and shoe gazing indie emotion, Appetite For Chivalry is a step by step introduction into the world of British Indie Rock, the perfect companion to test the waters with but not necessarily a ground breaking movement.
Appetite For Chivalry doesn't exactly grab you by the scruff of the neck and force you to sit up and pay attention with opening track Mantra, a somber White Lies-esque tremor of synths and despair that does steadily seep into your skin but perhaps would have been better making its appearance later in the album. Indeed it is the band's second track where things really start to take off. A bristling blast of foot tapping beats and head nodding riffs, No Friend Of Mine doesn't necessarily do as its title suggests, instead welcoming you in with a feel good vibe that explodes packing punchy beats and chant along fun that would have suited the opening track so much better, a shame really as Mantra is a great song if only it had come later. With just two tracks Club Smith have set up the precedence of the entire album. For every feel good, dance like crazy rush of indie rock (Nonchalant and The Green Room/Uh-Oh come immediately to mind) there is also the shoe gazing, heart on the sleeve tidal wave of emotion to offset the good vibe (I Didn't Want To Show You That I'd Lost Faith corners this market perfectly), making for an emotional rollercoaster of an album, one that will suit whatever your mood and which hints at great things to come from the Leeds lads.
There is only one problem with Appetite For Chivalry and that is that it doesn't really get going, there's a sense that Club Smith are holding back and not reaching their full potential. For every track that excites (the catchy The System Is Flawed for instance) there is another that seems to wash away Club Smith's hard work in one fail swoop. There's certainly promise and as far as debuts go, Appetite For Chivalry can hold its head up high but you can't escape the feeling that Club Smith have so much more to offer, fingers crossed their next album outing will see them unleashing their full potential as this has definately given an appetite for more.