This record would usually be well outside my comfort zone; it’s poppy and sometimes a bit too 80’s. However, after a week with it, I think I may have been won over. Well, at least as far as I can be.

Ollie Taylor sounds a bit like an X Factor contestant to me, and he looks a bit like one too. The record blends 80’s pop with some nice soundscapes and some extremely catchy musical hooks, in ‘This Is Love’ we hear one of these that managed to get stuck inside my head. Tracks ‘The Eyes That Follow’ and the dreadfully titled ‘The Psycho’ blend together and seems to compliment each other nicely, two sides of the same coin so to speak.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with Ollie Taylor, or this record, its chilled out, and perfect for working to, I found myself with it playing in the background, and even noticed myself nodding along. What stands out to me about this record is that Ollie Taylor produced, recorded and wrote the entire thing himself, which deserves a massive amount of respect, as writing catchy pop music is no doubt an extremely hard task.

Overall, it’s okay. It’s an interesting debut, confident and deserves a lot of respect for having going at it alone and doing the whole thing himself, minus so guitar work. I can’t see myself coming back again and again, but its a confident and competent little record and fans of Ollie’s other band The October Game will probably find this release interesting. I just couldn’t let myself go enough to truly get into it.

2/5

‘Little Drummer Boy’ by Ollie Taylor is out on the 29th October through Scylla Records.

Ollie Taylor links: Facebook|Twitter|Tumblr|SoundCloud

Words by Ryan Clayton.