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easyworld - This Is Where I Stand
Other reviews of easyworld usually have the same two points to make.
1. They're from Eastbourne
2. They sound like JJ72 in a good mood.
I'm going to address those two points now and get them out of the way.
1. Um, that's nice.
2. No they don't. No-one who has ever heard JJ72 will be able to imagine them with a brass section without also dying of laughter.
Right, let's get on with it then.
Indie has become a bit of a maligned term at the minute, a byword for whiny music and whinier lead singers. Well, just because all the indie bands who anyone's actually heard of lately are miserable buggers doesn't mean the genre's suddenly lapsed into depression. Enter easyworld, a three-piece indie band, but indie like they used to make, with huge choruses and lush harmonies and tunes that won't leave your head the second the CD stops.
This Is Where I Stand is their "proper" debut album, featuring 11 tracks, including the last two singles Try Not To Think and Bleach plus a few re-recorded tunes from last year's mini-album - in a good way, because that's a bit difficult to track down now. It's a lovely little collection of indie-pop tunes, and hey! It's not miserable!
Okay, it isn't constantly super-happy either, as evidenced on Junkies & Whores, which is probably the best track on here - it's gorgeous and sweeping, poignant and thrilling all at the same time. A Stain Never To Fade is also thoughtful and tinged with sadness, but again with a nagging chorus that refuses to go away. At the other end of the scale there's Bleach, formerly titled You Make Me Want To Drink Bleach, and you won't understand that title until you listen to the song, but it's about feeling alive, man, in a very poppy kind of way. Try Not To Think is equally joyous, a song for anyone who ever fell madly in love. And so on throughout the rest of the album.
It's proof that you can be indie and - gasp! - have FUN at the same time! You don't have to be a mopey sod all the time, you can even smile if you want to. More than that though, it's a demonstration of some of the catchiest tunes around right now. As for that JJ72 comparison, it doesn't quite ring true - vocalist Dav Ford is no Mark Greaney, but then again the JJ72 frontman's warbling put off as many people as it attracted, so maybe that's a good thing. easyworld are, excuse the pun, much easier on the ears than a lot of their contemporaries, and maybe because they don't try too hard to be epic and overblown, and end up being charming instead.
It isn't perfect of course - if this sort of indie pop nonsense irritates the hell out of you anyway, easyworld aren't going to change your mind. Hell, this record is so of its genre it even has The Kick Horns on it (or, the indie band's rent-a-brass-section of choice, in other words). And it's certainly not a record for every mood. But if you want an album that's going to make you sing along and cheer you up on a dreary day, then you won't go far wrong with this.
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