Early Morning Soundtrack

Tired of the same old boring 4 minute long soundalike pop guiter bands.  Bored of too cute singer songwriters and their love affairs with themselves and their overly delicate melodies and heart stopping lyrics.  Well the antidote has arrived fresh from Worthing; bizarrely.  EMS have been doing the rounds supporting a number of largish bands over the last while and I finally caught them at C2 last week.   And they are top drawer amazing, guitars played the way god intended them to be played, by young man with attitude to burn.  Stuart Slade (now tell me that’s not made up) struts around the stage as if he’s been doing it for years, pulling top rock cliché poses yet making them work.  The 3 guitars growl and scream like the best of them and Slade’s voice just begs for bigger venues.  Paul Ash’s guitar tells sublime stories under the power provided by his compatriots, James Mckeown and Stewart Weller. 

Their music reminds me of the Goth Rock of the early 80’s, but all of their own.  There are wonderful melodies within the long, and I mean long, songs.  No identikit pop standardisation from these boys.  I never timed them but the songs must have been 8 minutes or so each.  And each song felt right at that length.  They felt good.  There was sawing into the speakers, feedback controlled a la JMC.  There was drumming of the highest order and in front of it all was Slade prowling.

If you’re looking for fresh, confident, hard guitar rock but with intelligence and a good tune, EMS are your boys.  The sound was tight, but not in an all too familiar formula way, it was tight because EMS know what they are doing.  There was a single foray into the soft world of the electronic keyboard, which was quickly left behind for more guitar extravaganza.

When they ended Slade stood at the back of the small stage, head bowed, as if taking the adoration of a huge, screaming crowd and looked as if he owned the place.  If all is right in this world, that day will come soon.