I probably should have given this cd to someone else in the team to review as this may seem like a pretty biased review.
I’m a huge fan of White Clouds & Gunfire, and have been for a number of years, this Peterborough based bands brand of pop/punk has always impressed me, and now with the release of this album they are really coming into their own.
The songs here are top notch, opener ‘Bruised Not Broken’ is my favourite song right now. A tale of love gone wrong, it has a huge chorus and contains some serious riffing by Byron Marr and Alex Cox and some great vocals by singer Evey Verdegall and bassist Rob Woods.
‘Same Old Town’ continues on in the same vein, a brilliant song, with some gang style vocals to add to the catchy-as-hell chorus.
‘You Can’t Bring Me Down’ starts out like a full on riff monster, the powerful drumming of Lewis Fountain driving the song along, the verses then slow it down a little to prepare you for the full on chorus complete with ‘Woah oh’s..’.
Although with massively catchy melodies, this is still a harder edged release, the two guitar approach really bringing the crunch to the WCAG sound.
‘Poison’, the bands first single/video from the album is a slower track, but no less powerful, Evey’s vocal is both passionate and flawless.
‘Reflection’ is another huge song, I am seriously impressed with the quality of the songwriting here, each song gets better with every listen and I’ve had the chorus to this rattling round my head for days!
Long time fans will be familiar with ‘Dreams’, this newly recorded version definitely adds some power to the track, with some rad shouty vocals and some serious riffing.
The album ends with ‘Since You Were Gone’, another belter of a track which contains another star turn from Evey, who’s soaring voice really brings the melody to the song.
All in all this is a great debut, absolutely packed with well written, catchy tunes and should really lift the band’s profile. So, if you like your pop-punk with a harder edge and massive choruses then make sure you pick this up when it is released on September 2nd.
10/10
You can pre-order the album here – http://wcaguk.bigcartel.com/
