NYC’S Anglophile tunesters FIVE O’CLOCK HEROES have been quietly wowing us with their gutsy pop, good looks and heavy touring ethic for the best part of the past two years now, so it’s good to know their debut album “Bend To The Breaks” is finally around the corner.
Taken from the aforementioned, “Time On My Hands” is pretty much what you’d expect too: crisply produced by Girls Against Boys’ Eli Janney and mining the best of that sharp NYC no-wave/ new wave pop seam that has proved so productive for everyone from The Knack to The Strokes and beyond. Actually, FOCH remind me of The Knack even more than most because Antony Ellis’s high, excitable vocals even recall Doug Fieger as well as bordering-on-psychosis early David Byrne.
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The first of the brace of B-sides, “Good Company” ain’t half bad neither. Once again built upon economic, bitten-off riffs and smart, compact interplay, it pushes similar buttons to “Time On My Hands” and comes across as the very essence of ‘punchy’ with turbo handclaps on for good measure. It’s a shame they feel the need to prove their mettle as folksy troubadours with a couple of dreary acoustic outings to finish off, but ignore these and you’re left with a decent band who know a thing or three about good olde East Coast power pop and aren’t afraid to flaunt it. Fine by me.
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