Mentioned in Dispatches: Short Changed – Five O Fives

If it looks like rock music, and it sounds like rock music, then surely it is rock music. Well, yes and no. Short Changed, the new one from Birmingham’s Five O Fives, is built on all of the traditions and tenets of rock music, but it has done that one thing that a lot of the denizens of that genre seem unable to do: Move with the times.

The riffs are cool and crunchy, but the guitar sound has a forward-thinking, sonic edge. The song is punchy and full of attitude, but it is also accessible rather than aloof, which has often been the case in the past. It’s not quite classic rock and not quite alternative, and it isn’t even trying to compromise or build bridges; it’s just that it seems to have taken the best from both worlds and found a new way forward.

Now we just need a name for this new genre!