Soulful, dark, brooding… ‘True Skies’, the debut album by UK band The Shining, has an almost supernatural quality likening it to their classic Kubrick horror movie namesake. Their songs are built around Simon Jones’ enchanting basslines, measured out by Mark Heaney’s commanding drumming, interspersed with contrasting guitars (courtesy of Simon Tong and Dan McBean), all behind Duncan Baxter’s powerful vocals. The five-piece take their influences from classic rock (Led Zeppelin springs to mind), mixing nineties grunge sounds with seventies guitar riffing. Shying away from the melodic ballads that made Jones and Tong’s former band The Verve famous, The Shining have unleashed a guitar onslaught to challenge the punk-rock sensibilities of most of their contemporaries.

Beginning with the riff-heavy Quicksilver, the album quickly moves into melodic territory with Young Again, a big song with a big chorus. Other favourites include the old rock groove of Show You The Way and the sweet, melodious Danger.

In fact, this album has all the ingredients for success - the band is experienced and certainly talented - and yet comes out rather unsatisfying. Somewhere between the barren production, the abundant lyrical cliches and its sheer repetition it leaves me feeling strangely disappointed. That’s not to say that the songs aren’t good - on the contrary, first single I Wonder How has a singalong quality that hasn’t escaped my brain for a week - it’s just that they’re nothing truly special; this is probably not a CD you’ll be coming back to over and over again. Perfect background music, this could be the soundtrack to a variety of mundane tasks - but as a record of its own, it won’t blow your mind.

Ben Revi

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