You guys, The Story So Far are really, really popular.
We can gauge this not just by looking at album sales figures or the increasing size of the venues at which they’re appearing on tour, but by the sheer number of carbon copy acts springing up in their considerable wake. If Neck Deep wear the influence of Parker Cannon’s mob on their sleeves then South Wales’ Storyteller eschew the rest of the shirt altogether and turn up to the party like a Butler in the Buff – all sleeve and no trousers.
Perhaps that’s a little unfair. Though the band have been together for almost three years, this is Storyteller’s début EP and as such deserves some leeway. Début releases can be tricky affairs – often written over years and by evolving lineups, tastes and talents; for every band that emerges into the spotlight clutching a fully-formed statement of intent, there are ten who publicly undergo their putative stages. ‘A Place By Your Hopes’, though a short, sharp burst of appropriately raw pop-punk angst, is very much in the latter camp.
At times, Storyteller feel like they’re in such a rush to get to the next spiralling riff, or stop-start, chugging bridge that they forgo the vocal hooks and melodies which are meant to hold those elements together. There are undeniably some interesting ideas here – witness the bouncing, building breakdown of ‘Headspace’; the insistent chorus of ‘Reside’; the atmospheric ending of final track ‘Confines’ – the problem is that too many of these ideas come at the cost of the songs themselves, and while vocalist Finn Orell may be possessed of some compelling melodic concepts he’s ill-equipped to wholly realise them.
This isn’t by any means a bad release and if you’re a fan of the genre you’ll likely find something to enjoy here, but from the artwork to the band’s name – which puts them remarkably close to The Story So Far in one’s iTunes library – ‘A Place By Your Hopes’ is saturated with the latter band’s DNA like cold grease on a chip wrapper. If Storyteller want to stand out from the current herd of pop-punk purists, they need to cast off the shackles of their obvious influences and find an identity of their own.
ROB BARBOUR