As you may have noticed over the course of the last month I
have taken a bit of a liking to a Scottish band called Junebug. There is a very
good reason for this and that reason is that they make fantastic, original,
interesting music. One of the important cogs in this very talented musical
wheel is guitarist and keyboard player Aonghas Maxwell, or for the purposes of
this experiment A. Maxwell.
Hailing from Glasgow 21 year old Maxwell, not content with
being part of one of the hottest unsigned bands out right now has been busy
putting together a solo project. Now I can’t lie when I see that a member of a
band has launched a ‘solo project’ or ‘side project’ I take a sharp intake of
breath and fear the worst. This is because in 7 out of 10 cases these projects
fall into 1 of 2 depressingly rubbish categories.
The first of these is normally if the lead singer branches
out on their own and the scenario generally speaking is this... singer writes
crap songs, band don’t want to use them because they are crap, singer and their
ego decide that they know best so launch ‘solo/side project’ to release crap
material, the project flops because as is plainly obvious the songs are crap.
The second category is that a band member starts to get
ideas above their station. They forget that they play guitar/bass/drums in the
band because that’s what they are good at and think that they will have a crack
at this singing and song writing lark because frankly how hard can it be. The
same scenario as outlined in category 1 then plays out. The common theme you
might have picked up on is that in general side/solo projects normally produce
rubbish music for us fans and are used only to stroke the ego of the person
making said rubbish music.
So yeah, the upshot of all this is that when A. Maxwell
emailed me with this track I was a little concerned. However and it is a
massive however, there are 3 out of 10 of these side projects that do produce
very good music and I am massively relieved and pleased to announce that this
is one of them.
At its centre ‘Hyde’ is one man and his guitar, there isn’t
masses of studio wizardry or a song writer trying too hard, it’s brilliance
lies in its simplicity. The vocal is rough around the edges in all the right
ways, and the guitar work skips along nicely. The middle section of the track
is totally stripped back until the guitar returns accompanied with random vocal
ramblings and only after this do things get back completely back on track. But
this little excursion is a great addition and marks the song out from the ‘2
verses plus a chorus’ crowd.
The main aim of a single such as this as well as obviously
trying to provide the world with quality music is to act as a preview to what
will follow. In this case that is an EP by the ‘First Species’ which is due in
the coming months, and I have to say that here both boxes are well and truly
ticked.
‘Hyde’ is uncomplicated, understated but undeniably
brilliant. Beautifully rough around the edges and thankfully without that
overly commercial polish, it hits all the right notes. There is also loads of
replay value so you can keep hitting repeat to your hearts content without
getting bored stiff.
As a result there’s only one question left… when’s that EP
coming out?
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