Review by Robert O’Connor
Cork born Daniel Jones may be familiar to some as the former lead singer of The Guests, but now he’s officially out on his own, ready to begin his solo career. After The Guests split up in 2007, Daniel moved briefly to Chicago and created a new, more mature style of song writing that’s ready for unleashing in the form of his debut E.P., Faces, Girls, Monsters. Despite great promise from a well seasoned song writer, the EP sadly loses its footing after a few spins with the songs offering little to keep you coming back.
Rip It Up shows great promise with a rumbling bass line, inpatient hard drums and a looping lyrics style that jumps too quickly into the noise, leaving the song with almost no build up and a lukewarm chorus that sounds like it should be a great, thrilling action packed rock the house number but just doesn’t have the energy to take the job on. Second track, Bouquet lazes its way off the ground to offer an uneventful hark back to the early nineties UK indie scene. The chorus manages to show glimpses of the track working but again it just sounds too mournful and too downtrodden to make an impact. From a serious point of view, the wailing harmonies and lazy layers of vocals strip the music of any entertainment factor.
Barefoot Childstar is a bog standard sixties folk sing along number with mandatory harmonica accompaniment that neither pleases or displeases to any great degree before the EP rounds off with the piano based Taunting The Tide. Musically this piece is the outspoken stand out of this EP but the vocals don’t fit. In places you’d swear it was Nigel Tufnel’s Lick My Love Pump with Adam Sandler adding vocals, in others you’re blown away by the incredibly beautiful, soulful string and piano arrangements that truly come alive in the silence of the song.
There’s a lot to work with here. Daniel can write and play, no doubt about that but these songs need some serious road testing and fine tuning before they can truly shine.