A couple of things stood out for me on this release:
1) The singer can really sing, he can stretch his notes out really well and certainly hold a tune. He’s far better than a lot of more ‘professional’ bands and makes this release worthy of a listen on his own. ‘Sunniside Up’ is basically made worthwhile due to this guy’s parts – he sounds like a cross between Gustav Wood and Ian Watkins, which sums up the band quite well actually.
2) There’s so much fat that needs trimming the EP ends up sounding bloated and pretty much unlistenable. A 90-second instrumental ‘Intro’ isn’t needed while the same amount of time could be swiped from ‘Open waters’ and it wouldn’t lose anything at all.
3) These guys can clearly write songs and write them well, but there’s not a single killer chorus here. Both Young Guns and Lostprophets have had success as a rock band because they can switch from the energetic or the atmospheric into a massive pop chorus. INK try it all the time but there’s nothing here that grabs me as it should. ‘The Design (part 1)’ is about as close as the band get to a catchy chorus, but even then it’s largely forgettable.
The more I listened to this EP the more frustrated I got. It’s abundantly clear these guys have talent, the singer especially so. Yet there’s not one great song here and it all seems to be such a waste. In my opinion the band need to disappear back to the rehearsal room, listen to this EP and think ‘where we can we cut back and how can we make this better?’ Trimming songs back to three minutes-ish would make them more engaging and increase the impact. The guitar work is superb at times, so make sure it’s more effective in a shorter pace of time – I shouldn’t have to wait more than four minutes in ‘The Design (part 1)’ to have a killer riff and a brilliant bridge. My attention span doesn’t last that long.
INK are potentially brilliant. But this EP is just frustrating and annoying and not a true reflection of how good this band probably are.