the fridays
Reviewed by: Alastair Collins
Published: 25 November 2010
ep: woh oh
The Fridays are a relatively young band, by all accounts, having celebrated their one year anniversary as recently as April. To their credit, the quality of their debut EP Woh Oh is very high. However, I can’t help but escape the feeling that its release may prove to be a little too premature for either the band or the songs to be all they could have been.
For all the excellently recorded, well written, instrumentation this CD has to offer, there is something not quite… complete, about these six tracks. There are moments when the music feels empty and under developed and to be honest, the lyrics seem a little immature. I’m all for bands writing about things fun and light hearted, but lines like ‘You’re just my tree huggin’ hippie and I wish that tree was me’ just pang of anthracite to me.
I wouldn’t normally pick on individual lyrics, but the writing of the songs and the mixing on the EP suggests that The Fridays want people to concentrate on the vocal line. I’m not trying to say that they should be delving in to the dark mysteries of the Human soul or anything, but the heavy concentration of cussing in the opening track, ‘Strange’, perhaps goes a little further than it needs to or should.
The band’s style of music and use of distasteful phrases are a little contradictory, as far as audience demographics go. Call me a cynic, but anyone who wants to succeed in this business needs to keep these things in mind.
The strongest track on ‘Woh Oh’ is undoubtedly ‘Supergirl’, which plays perfectly to the strengths of The Fridays; their gorgeous vocal abilities, the well written and well executed instrumentation and lyrics that will stay with you after the song’s finished.
‘Angel Face’ is a close second, but suffers a little from a couple of minor instrumental interludes sounding stilted and interrupting the song’s flow. These are the kind of things that experience, audience feedback and producer input will iron out over time leading up to a CDs recording, this is perhaps the best example of why I think the EP’s release is a little too early for The Fridays.
The ordering of the songs on this EP is well thought out; there is a nice flow between the tracks, start to finish. The quality of the engineering, mixing and mastering is top notch; this is truly a professional level release and will not sound out of place at home or abroad.
Overall, this CD is a lot of fun and will appeal to a lot of people. Definitely get a hold of ‘Supergirl’ and, if you like it, give ‘Angel Face’ a listen. Beyond those two, if you still want more from The Fridays, I’d recommend just biting the bullet and getting the whole EP. Since the tracks are currently available as a free download, there’s not really a lot to lose for any punter.
