Music Review// Pylo - 'Enemies'
Strummy acoustic for the
verses, moody piano somewhere indistinct in the mix, FX-laden guitars assisting
stadium-filling choruses, keening vocals conveying vague but obviously
emotional lyrics, video featuring lead singer on gorgeous yet anonymous
windswept shore... On this evidence, Pylo's spiritual forebears are Coldplay.
The 'spiritual forebears' bit
is important; 'Enemies' sounds like a progression from the musical landscape of
'X & Y', arguably the point at which Chris Martin & Co.'s sound reached
maturity. Singer Matt Aldus doesn't sound in mortal fear of voiding his own
bladder, which helps give the song some real heft, and the stuttering drums
which appear in the second verse offer a pleasing counterpoint to the
four-to-the-floor pounding which predominates on the rest of the track. That's
not to say everything works here; the “gang vocals” on the chorus are in
dead-on, possibly-autotuned unison, Still, Pylo are a young lot – the members
are still in their early twenties and the band barely a year old – so there's
still time and space for them to develop.
What's obvious is that Pylo
aspire to be the latest heroes of a particular strain of stadium rock, and are
aware of the lineage of their music. Apart from Coldplay, there's elements of
Radiohead, U2, the National, Doves and even Pink Floyd in there – all artists
who combined everyman emotions with massive success. Pylo blatantly have the
same goal for their music – not only does their press release talk about
“bringing balance to the airwaves”, it also includes the phrase “next stop...
Hyde Park” - and on this showing they have the potential to meet it.
Reviewed by Edward Feery