EP review: Smudge – StayFeelRegret

I do wish people wouldn’t attach spurious musical genres to bands. Smudge are an anthemic punk band playing power-pop songs. Nothing more. Mentioning indie, altrock and – most astonishingly – dance in their biography seems unusually perverse. The StayFeelRegret EP shows they specialise in surging choruses allied to a live-sounding and guitar/drum based frontal assault with the emphasis on catchy tunes, lyrics that bear little relation to titles and words that seem rather too parochial for a world-thinking band.

Their three tunes all display the same template: punk-speed songs, a rush to the finish, a couple of quiet moments (usually a little guitar figure), a huge-sounding chorus and a feeling of vacuous emptiness once the StayFeelRegret EP has finished. “Flat-Line” is a brisk romp that opens with a bouncy guitar riff and burns brightly for 3 minutes before disappearing from your memory as soon as it’s over.

“StayFeelRegret” itself whispers the title hook rather than trumpeting the chorus but, nevertheless, chucks in an anthemic hook to show that Smudge haven’t forgotten their audience but the song itself sags and blusters where it might have surgically incised. “Lock + Load” choruses with the phrase “arm yourself” and clatters around for another three minutes but all it does is make me wish Smudge were a bit more adventurous and interesting.

Smudge are a Wigan five-piece who formed, unsurprisingly, after they had met Blink 182 backstage. Quite frankly, it was practically inevitable that they would have done. They play speedily and they play well but their ultimately formulaic music and introspective lyrics about relationships (if you can decipher them in the tumult of the overblown hooks), even with the advantage of a sterling production job, leaves them playing second fiddle to greater talents.

That said, watch Smudge – despite my reservations – take over the world…