David Young and the Midnight Chorus, Wasted Days - album review

They're full of punchy percussion and Blink 182-lite vocals. Gruff guitars make appearances aplenty and they are clearly a tight unit who know each other inside out and can play off each other to create an accomplished noise for just three musicians.

But there feels like there is a large chunk of soul missing from the recording - pallid production work might have lessened their sound.

We always want to shout up about our local artists taking their first steps into music. But compared to a lot of other releases out there from the Black Country, Staffordshire, Wyre Forest, Shropshire and Birmingham, there feels something amiss.

The teenage themes, and often lyrical content, may leave older listeners feeling ambivalent and like they're not being addressed by what is going on here.

Some lyrics really seem to miss - the troubles of a small-time band outlined in Lament feel a little like accepting fate rather than fighting to prove everyone wrong.

And while the lower tones of the track often flail around to get noticed, the rest of the music can fall into the realm of bland and feel an inconsequential added extra alongside the vocals and those finger-twonking bass lines.

Borrowed Time, for example, feels like it encapsulates a lot of what is said above with its radio-friendly feel.

We don't want this to feel like it's all critical. Young has a welcoming vocal style that endears you to him from the off.

And there are some well constructed tunes such as the jumpy intro to Over & Out which shows these guys know how to write a catchy number when they take a few more risks with what they are doing.

We hope that future releases follow this tack more. Let those shackles slide off and really punch us square in the earhole with something bawdy and fun – as Over & Out does.

They just need a license to experiment next time they hit the studio.

Rating: 4/10

David Young and the Midnight Chorus will launch Wasted Days with a gig at Birmingham's The Flapper on April 6. Tickets are available here.