Running Out of Time – SirenBlue (reviewed by Dave Frankin)

If there is a sweet spot between rock weight, pop infectiousness, and indie cool, and the annals of history suggest there is (otherwise how would you explain the brilliance of Big Star), then SirenBlue clearly has a route map to that special place. How do I know? I’ve just listened to their latest EP, Running Out of Time.

Although I have used a pretty old and perhaps, for many, obscure point of reference, there is nothing here that doesn’t feel totally of the here and now, but you can still feel the echoes of those times when pop and rock seemed to be in open dialogue, when genres felt less important, and certainly less restrictive, and when indie, as we know it today, was still finding its feet as a separate branch of music.

‘Running out of Time’ kicks things off and sets the tone, dense but melodic, raw but somehow poised, a restless backdrop for Collette Horne‘s surprising vocals, not as big (as in obvious) as you might expect for such music and the song is all the better for the tastefulness and subtlety she brings to it.

‘Mess’ is, for me, the high point of an EP that has already been set to high benchmarks: a soulful vibe running through a smooth rockscape, intricate and alluring, with a timely message about the destruction humanity has brought to the only planet it has ever called home.

Neil David takes over the vocal duties for ‘Looks Like Rain’, and the result is a song that echoes the brilliance of Crowded House… accolades don’t come much higher from my pen… ‘Don’t Look Now’ is the obvious crossover single, Karl Manners funking it up nicely and pushing this pop-rocker into dancefloor territory and ‘Dance in the Rain’ is shimmering and sensational. (Okay, that’s the next single sorted too.)

Running out of Time is a great collection of songs, and boxes are ticked across many musical landscapes. Commercially accessible, effortlessly contagious, pop-aware, running on rock energy and fashionable enough to keep the indie kids not only happy but boogieing along, dancefloor-friendly and constructed out of a blend of groove and sophistication, if SirenBlue never made another record, this would be a perfect legacy.