News

Orphan Boy's 'lost' album

• 10th Jan 2011

can you believe NME stuck out another list feature t'other week??
well i can, one week into the new year and their first issue is yet another bloody list!

admittedly, this time I was a little intrigued to see what was going on tho, The 100 Greatest Albums You've Never Heard didn't seem to be their usual tack and it seemed to hold a lot of potential to actually be an interesting rundown

and while I was expecting to find a bunch of musos educating the uneducated on a plethora of albums that for some reason or another never actually got released, what I instead found was quite a well informed countdown that had been contributed to by NME writers and rock stars alike, all revealing their own personal favourite albums that are likely to have slipped under most people's radars

yes, it is still another list that has been cobbled together, and with celebrity contributers it has probably meant that the NME writers have put even less effort in that usual, but regardless, it actually held up as an informative issue, and it was interesting to dip into and flick through, especially when there were a handful of modern choices among them

I was pleasantly surprised to see Clor topping the list (tho I'm not sure if the placings actually had any real relevance) and at 57 was another band name that rang a bell

Orphan Boy's 2008 album, Shop Local had been picked out by someone I forget now… and I couldn't fathom for a little while why the band's name sounded so familiar, I didn't remember following the band at all and continued scratching my head

but then it came to me, that I still have this very album tucked away somewhere among all the other CDs that didn't excite me very much, that had been sent to me from glasswerk to review

the album hadn't had much of an impact on me, but its inclusion in the 'lost' list intrigued me and had me questioning my own judgement, so having dug the album out and given it another spin, perhaps it is due a second opinion

afew tracks in and I wasn't exactly offended by it, but nor was I thrilled, it sounded very standard indie fare that was unlikely to set the world alight…

so what exactly did I have to say about it first time around tho?

a quick google pulled up….

'The more you are subjected to, the fewer bands sound truly original, and perhaps that is exactly the point with this album, a repeat listen reveals very strong influences and sonic identities that can be traced back to a lineage of Great British bands including The Clash, Oasis, Sex Pistols and Arctic Monkeys, to name but a few.

Strummer style vocals. Alex Turner style delivery. Ramshackle Libertine-esque guitars. A Kooks pop sensibility. The list goes on. and on.

Lazy comparisons they may be but its far from a negative review for the band, many of the tracks on here are deserving of ‘stand-out’ status but the album seems to get lost within itself as tracks charge off in different directions, pulling the album apart instead of finding a focus'

and I must admit, that even with the passing of time, and a re-evaluation given recent light, I couldn't agree more with my initial review, some tracks are big enough to have found them a place on rock n rolls map alongside The Courteeners, but it just wasn't meant to be…