Album Review

Pilotlight – The Postwar Musical

• 9th Nov 2010

The term ‘big fish in a little pond’ is thrown around quite a lot. Pilotlight are the total opposite of this but this isn’t necessarily negative. Pop culture in Ireland as the band state is far too small. So imagine getting out of your small cosy surroundings and entering a larger one such as London. Pilotlight did just that.

The Post War Musical as the name suggests is a brooding record. The gloomy melodic guitars of ‘They Had No Names’ evoke the melodramatic ‘Deja Entandu’ stage of Brand New whilst the powerful stadium like build ups of ‘Afraid of Heights’ mimic the voices of ‘X and Y’ era Coldplay or 30 Seconds to Mars. It seems that the band don’t know what they want sometimes however. ‘Pulling on the Doors that say Push’ is messy at times. Does it want to be a slow anthemic ballad or a violent post punk track? The band also reach the point of cringe worthy pretentions through their lyrics.

It’s clear that Pilotlight know what they want. They can pull it off when they want to but they’re still not quite there yet.

6/10