Review: Glos Rocks CD (From Stroud News and Journal)

Review: Glos Rocks CD

REVIEW

Glos Rocks Various Artists £10 Available from Trading Post and Kane's Records

IN the year or so that Glos Rocks, The Space in Stroud's youth rock night, has been going, a strange magic has been working on the bands involved.

All in their teens, they have been absorbing musical styles like it's going out of fashion and, put in the way of a studio, they have all come up with something splendid.

From the Starsky and Hutched-up funk of Blueberry Pie to the gloriously anthemic, doomy atmospherics of youmademe, from the Chilli Peppered sonic exuberance of Friction Tutorial to the pitch-perfect Bowie-isms of Malitia, this is a revelatory album that should give a few of the more established bands in Stroud pause for thought.

Put simply, there's some stiff competition waiting in the wings, guys.

Elysium, whose Goth pop anthem Dislike to Like bears a certain debt to bands like Evanescence, are a good bet to do well, thanks to the chiming guitars and the steely vocals of Jess Murray.

So are In Blue Jeans, whose Oo La La is an utterly off-the-wall combination of Busted-style vocals, percussion-littered oompah music and 1950s rock and roll.

I'm not sure whether the band should enter the track for the Eurovision Song Contest or include it on a psychedelic concept album, but I want to hear more.

Best of all is the album's opening track, Understanding You by Sub-Justice, a short, sublime burst of sugar and poison.

If the spine-shivering sexiness of Ruth Royall's vocals and the richness of the music can be captured live, Sub-Justice are a band to watch out for.

Buy this album. See these bands live. They are the future.

Adam Horovitz