The Sound Ex

The End Bar Newcastle is the small bands dream: dark, dingy and cosy. The small corner pub was surprisingly packed with around 100 people ready to listen to the local boys’ second album, entitled ‘Palomino’. Sound Ex have toured with The Datsuns, and the Mooney Suzuki, and their influences were easy to see on their music. The support band came on the stage first though, but just a general hint with support bands. They need to be of a similar genre to the actual main act. This band was a punk band. I’m sorry for all the punk fans that read this, but it’s not my cup of tea, so when I want to hear Rock music, don’t pump out Punk. It’s one of those great lists called ‘the oldest trick in the book’, which they obviously didn’t read. They did have the ‘I look really bored’ bassist and the ‘I don’t think that I should be here’ lead singer that looked more like an accountant than a punk singer.
Anyway, The Sound Ex came on. As this was an album launch, it’s not the best place to judge a band on their live performances, the crowd obviously here to support the release of the album. As a band they worked well, they interacted with each other, having two vocalists sharing almost equally, except they have an obvious front man. The album as a whole is one of those efforts in which bands have fallen into the trap of producing a ‘safe’ album, one which doesn’t really do anything, but at the same time still gets your foot tapping, but this could be by the energy of the band on stage, as opposed to their music. Its interesting to see what they do from here, they are already signed with Damnation Records, so it’s not like there one of the masses of bands unsigned. It is, though, a crossing point for The Sound Ex, between going ‘reasonably’ big nationwide, regional or even going into the doldrums. Its something that could go either way, but with their life performance they have… more up than down.

Review by Izaac Carlisle