British alt-rock trio PaperPlane enjoyed relative success with their last release ‘Draw Your Own Holes’ back in 2011 and have enjoyed the touring life for most of the time since, including sold out shows as far afield from their home in West Yorkshire as Sweden. After claiming to draw influences from an array of bands such as Brand New, Hot Water Music and Radiohead, I’m pretty excited to hear what this follow up has to offer.
The opener ‘Strings like Ribbons’ starts of very promising. Lovely guitar tones and wonderfully recorded drums accompanied by a prominent bouncy bass line. Unfortunately Jack Bennet’s otherwise decent vocals are tarnished with a cringe worthy stutter effect used to death on this track throughout the verses. Although the chorus still allows Bennet to show exactly what he is capable of when is voice is left untouched, I can’t help but be left completely baffled with the vocal effects used. They completely ruin an otherwise good opener. I can assure you, though; it isn’t something that continues through the record, which after hearing this track was something I was very worried about.
Going from one end of the spectrum to another, we are lead from the questionable opener into my favourite track on the EP. ‘Live Her’ rebuilds any interest that was lost on ‘Strings like Ribbons’. It’s a perfect example of the alt-rock label given to the trio and once this song was through I was extremely intrigued as to what the rest of the record has to offer. ‘All With Rivers’ also showcases one of the more pleasant examples of the band’s intentions to mix it up with genres and tempos. This is a dangerous game to be playing though and I feel like the bookends of the EP, ‘Strings like Ribbons’ and ‘Rose’ are a very clear example of the genre-mixing technique not paying off.
I can only assume that the so called shoe-gaze element to the band is what comes in to play with the aforementioned closer ‘Rose’, though I feel like even with half the song taken up mostly by echoing vocals and reverbed guitars, calling it shoe-gaze is a bit of stretch, and a poor attempt living up to claims of blurring the lines between genres. After all, the press release does state that “there’s something for everyone”, so this is clearly an angle they are going for. Unfortunately, rather than making for a good shoe-gaze-influenced track as they might have hoped, it actually makes for a rather boring melodic alt-rock track that ultimately leaves the EP ending on an anti climax, especially given the brief amount of quality and potential shown on ‘Live Her’ and ‘Chariot’.
When sticking to the straight up alt-rock side of things, PaperPlane is a band that shows promise, potential and most of musical integrity. I get the feeling they know the type of music they are trying to write very well when they stick to that style. It’s with branching out and trying to cover as much ground as possible that the songwriting falters which ultimately leaves the EP as whole quite underwhelming. I would like to hear more songs from PaperPlane in the less experimental style of ‘Live Her’, which is the beam of light shining from this otherwise dull EP. I would recommend checking out that track along with the single ‘Chariot’, but don’t expect anything on the same level when listening to the EP as a whole.
2/5
‘Rebuild’ by PaperPlane is released on 12th August.
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Words by Joe Hart (@nottheJoeHart)
