The Rain Band : The Rain Band
Temptation Records

There's a lot of competition for The Rain Band at the moment. An upsurge of new bands have recently emerged who are successfully tapping into the mainstream such as The Thrills, The Coral, Kings Of Leon and Athlete. Any band releasing an album now is under pressure to deliver the goods. Debut albums are the building block for bands to establish their territory - just look at The Strokes and The Vines to see how much impact a quality debut album can make.

The Rain Band fail the first test of originality, sporting a sound almost identical to Mansun with electronic sampling to texture the songs and a rigid guitar to give it that token indie signature. The eager single Fist Of Fury is the most obvious example of this. On the other hand Eye For An Eye gives an insight into a raw approach that doesn't rely so heavily on the electronic façade.
    The electronic element to the album carefully turns away from being too manufactured, although it does tend to over cook it on occasions, mainly on the confusing Ruins And Remains. When they do manage to get the balance right they reap the rewards of their style; the animated Easy Rider demonstrates this perfectly.

The album is consistent; a little too consistent perhaps. There are no obvious flagship songs to identify with because each song is branded with the same blueprint. The result is an unadventurous recording which never digresses from the middle-of-the-road sound on offer. There's a strong sense that this is a band who know the right things to say but haven't said it yet, and in the overpopulated, dog eat dog jungle of the indie scene, The Rain Band just aren't chewing!

:: Paul Newbold